Today, DRUDGE dropped the biggest Mark Foley scandal bombshell yet:
According to two people close to former congressional page Jordan Edmund, the now famous lurid AOL Instant Message exchanges that led to the resignation of Mark Foley were part of an online prank that by mistake got into the hands of enemy political operatives, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.
According to one Oklahoma source who knows the former page very well, Edmund, a conservative Republican, goaded an unwitting Foley to type embarrassing comments that were then shared with a small group of young Hill politicos. The prank went awry when the saved IM sessions got into the hands of political operatives favorable to Democrats.
The primary source, an ally of Edmund, adamantly proclaims that the former page is not a homosexual. The prank scenario was confirmed by a second associate of Edmund. Both are fearful that their political careers will be affected if they are publicly brought into the matter.
The prank scenario only applies to the Edmund IM sessions and does not necessarily apply to any other exchanges between the former congressman and others.
The news come on the heels that Edmund has hired former Timothy McVeigh attorney, Stephen Jones.
Well, this certainly explains a lot.
As the details of this story have unfolded, it is obvious that ABC News had transcripts of dozens of IM sessions between Foley and several teenage boys. It also seems that ABC News knew, well, maybe a few too many biographical details about the boys in the IM sessions.
To me, the probability of such detailed information being obtained by an accidental or random process (such as a third party accidentally stumbling upon the communications) seemed rather small. If this story is true, then ABC News probably received this batch of IM's, along with various details about the teens participating in the messages, from one source.
I believe that source was a group of Democrat operatives.
That would also explain how CREW obtained the messages. And why liberal bloggers began hinting earlier in the year that they had a surefire plan to destroy Mark Foley. And it explains the bogus "StopSexPredators" blog that supposedly obtained these IM's as anonymous submissions from victimized Congressional pages (also a stretch, since StopSexPredators had no inbound links and practically zero traffic at the time the "StopSexPredator" blogger "broke" the story at DailyKos). And it provides a good explanation for the confusion surrounding the ages of the teens -- the messages were sent three years ago, when allegedly was 18 years old, and his compatriots a few years younger, perhaps 16 or 17.
But like all strange fiction, this story was based in fact. Obviously Jordan Edmund and his pals wouldn't have baited Foley into those communications unless they knew that he would take the bait; that is, unless they knew that he was gay and had a thing for teenage boys. That seems to be an undisputed fact, and I suspect that more and more young men will come forward in the next days with stories of Foley making unwelcome advances.
I'm glad that Mark Foley is gone. We don't need lecherous men who prey on teens in the US House of Representatives.
But at the same time, the manner of his outing and departure raises several disturbing "right to privacy" and "gay rights" issues. Specifically, should gay rights groups be angry at the fact that Foley was baited and outed by a group of teenage pranksters? With the involvement of Democrat operatives thrown in, this whole thing looks to me like a textbook case of baiting and entrapment.
And Democrats involved with Foley's outing have some explaining to do as well. When, exactly, did they come into possession of the Edmund IM's? Did they know that the IM's dated from 2003? Did they know that the Speaker's office was investigating claims of inappropriate behavior relating to Mark Foley? Did the Democrats purposefully withhold these messages in order to perpetrate an "October Surprise" and then accuse Speaker Hastert of "not doing enough"?
This story is far, far from over.
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