From NY Times
By Carl Hulse and Raymond Hernandez

Top House Republicans knew for months about e-mail traffic between Representative Mark Foley and a former teenage page, but kept the matter secret and allowed Mr. Foley to remain head of a Congressional caucus on children’s issues, Republican lawmakers said Saturday.

The exchanges began with what Republicans now describe as an overfriendly e-mail message from Mr. Foley to the unidentified teenager. But news reports about the exchanges have led to the disclosure of e-mail correspondence with other former pages in which the discussions became more and more sexually explicit.

The revelations set off a political upheaval, with Democrats and some Republicans alike calling for a full investigation of Mr. Foley’s conduct and whether House leaders did enough to look into it.

Among those who became aware of the communication in the fall of 2005 between Mr. Foley and the 16-year-old page, who worked for Representative Rodney Alexander, Republican of Louisiana, were Representative John A. Boehner, the majority leader, and Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Mr. Reynolds said in a statement Saturday that he had also personally raised the issue with Speaker J. Dennis Hastert earlier this year.

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