Hastert: 'Buck Stops Here' on Foley Scandal

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MADELEINE BRAND, host:

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert held a press conference today in his district in Illinois. All week, he has endured pressure to resign over the Mark Foley scandal. Hastert's critics say he didn't react fast enough to sexual messages ex-Congressman Foley sent to young, Capitol Hill pages. Hastert today says he's keeping his job, and now says he takes full responsibility for the scandal.

Representative DENNIS HASTERT (Republican, Illinois; Speaker of the House): I'm sorry, you know, when you talk about the page issue and what's happened in the Congress. I'm deeply sorry that this has happened. And the bottom line is that we're taking responsibility, because ultimately - as someone has said in Washington before - the buck stops here.

BRAND: NPR's David Schaper was at Hastert's press conference in Illinois, and he joins us now. And David, it seems like this is quite a change in rhetoric from his blaming the Democrats and the news media earlier. What else did Hastert say today?

DAVID SCHAPER: Well, he certainly did tone it down. And his tone was very contrite and very - much more sorrowful than it has been in the past. He did say - as you just heard - that he takes responsibility for this. And what that means is that there's going to be some changes in Congress in terms of the page program, that they are going to be doing everything they possibly can to protect the safety of the children who serve in that program.

And they will talk about the system not being designed for modern messaging and the IMing and e-mailing that goes on now, and that there will be greater oversight of those sorts of things for members of Congress, particularly as it applies to the children and those who are working as interns or as pages in Congress. And he's calling for full investigations of this matter at just about every level. He's appointing a special House Ethics Committee investigation. Louis Freeh, the former FBI director's going to head up an investigation. The Justice Department and FBI continued it's own investigation, and he's also asking authorities in Florida to investigate the matter.

BRAND: And there had been some controversy over what Speaker Hastert knew and when he knew it. Did he clear up any of those ambiguities?

SCHAPER: Well, he continues to maintain that he learned about this - the explicit language that were in some of the instant messaging that was going back and forth between Congressman Mark Foley and some of the pages who had worked in Congress before - that he did not learn about that until Friday, and that he learned most of what he'd known in the media, that the ABC News reports which broke the story were the first that he'd heard to be (unintelligible).

He said that he did know almost a year ago that there were some questionable messages involving the one page from Louisiana, and that the Congressman from Louisiana had asked somebody to talk to Mr. Hastert to have somebody talk to Congressman Foley and that took place and they told him to cease and desist and not do it again and thought the matter was taken care of. But he did say that maybe there was some red flags along the way that they should have paid a little bit better attention to.

BRAND: And you're there in his home state. What do Hastert's constituents have to say about all this?

SCHAPER: Well, his constituents are happy that he's staying on the job, that he maintained that he not going to resign his speakership, nor from his seat in Congress. And Denny Hastert is very well liked in his community. He served not just in the Congress, but for the last two decades in the state House of Representatives before that - a very popular high school teacher and coach before that. And people really like Denny Hastert, and want him to maintain their representation. And it certainly is enjoyable to have the Speaker coming from your hometown. So it brings a lot of goodies back to the district.

BRAND: Well, assuming that he does win re-election in November, does that also mean that he will be the Speaker again?

SCHAPER: Well, it doesn't. He says he wants to run again if he is re-elected in a month from his district - and he does have a Democratic opponent who is a bit of a long shot, but is gaining some strength and steam because of this scandal. But if he's re-elected to the House, he wants to be re-elected Speaker of the House if the Republicans maintain of majority. It remains to be seen if there would be a challenge from within the party. And certainly, if the Republicans don't maintain control of the chamber, it would certainly seem likely that he would either step aside or that someone would run against him for the top leadership post in the U.S. House of Representatives.

BRAND: Presumably so. Presumably a Democrat, if the Democrats are in power.

NPR's David Schaper reporting from Illinois. Thank you, David.

SCHAPER: Thank you.

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