The Mark Foley saga may have just taken a huge turn thanks to a very detailed report from Passionate America. He discovered that ABC had left up some instant messages with the screen name clearly visible.
Besides all of the evidence he provides, I was able to find another webpage linking the screen name Lolakana223 to Jordan Edmund. This is from a General Discussion board from the House Page Alumni Association. You’ll have to use Google cache as the page is now unavailable:
jordanedmund
Jul 1 2003, 08:33 PM
No it wouldnt Shrineguard. Everyone in the city was encouraged to go back to their homes after the attacks took place. So the Pages went back to their home which is the dorm, we remained there for the rest of the day and then went back to our normal activities the next day. If you would like to know more specific details, feel free to Instant Message me with AOL instant messanger, at Lolakana223, and I’ll answer any question you have.
Jordan’s MySpace page is also available in the Google cache. It confirms that he is now 21 and that he left the page program in June 2002. Other things from his MySpace indicate that his sexual orientation is “Straight”, he is a student at University of California, Berkeley, and strangely enough he is currently working on the campaign of a Republican for governor.
This will surely be a blow to future media attempts to conceal “victim” identities. It will only be a matter of time now before all of the rest of the information comes out and the facts are known.
As of now the questions are: Was the page even under 18 at the time? Was he even a page at the time? Who knew what and when?
Drudge has this flash up saying that some messages were from prior to Jordan’s 18th birthday:
A network source explains exchanges with the young man and disgraced former Congressman Foley took place before and after the 18th birthday.
When were they planning on telling us this?
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Update: (8:51pmCST)
I just wanted to add that this new information doesn’t clear former Rep. Foley of anything. He obviously did something wrong as he went right into Patrick Kennedy blame-and-run defense mode.
What it does is question if the media is protecting the identity of an 18 year old, apparently the victim of no crime or sexual assault, one month before an election.
Sure, some of the IM’s may be to boys under 18 and some may be to at-the-time employed pages. The problem is that some may NOT be. The ABC source implies that there was a mixture and when the information is bottled up there is no way to tell the difference…
Update #2: (10:03pmCST)
ABC News “The Blotter” has just added this to their story:
This message was dated April 2003, at approximately 7 p.m., according to the message time stamp at a time when the teen had been 18 for just six weeks. (Some sharp online readers spotted that the boy was technically legal when the exchange took place).
NewsBusters has more information on other changes they are making to their story. The description now reads:
ABC News now has obtained 52 separate instant message exchanges, which former pages say were sent by Foley, using the screen name Maf54, to two different boys who began their exchanges with Foley at the age of 16 and 17, and continued through the age of 18.
Update #3: (10:39pmCST)
Another ABCNews.com piece pulled yesterday? Here is something from FishBowlNY (h/t StopTheACLU):
“I filed an original piece of content that I believe adds to ABC’s coverage of the Foley story,” Moss told FishbowlNY. “It is rare for a site like ABCNews.com to remove a story completely — it’s as if it never existed.
More here at Queerty: ABC.COM PULLS FULL STORY
Update #4: (10/5 9:50pmCST)
How many pages does it take to make a book?
Mark Foley scandal update: Pages looking for a book deal?
Eric Anderson at 8:03 pm
But if you yourself are reporting that ABC says the IMs took place before and after his 18th birthday…does this mean you think it’s no big deal? And if not, if you think Foley was wrong, why would you want to out a person who was under 18 at the time…and whose Republican standing to this day would seem to indicate he is not a part of an orchestrated October surprise? How underage does someone have to be, or how long before they turn 18, before you would feel anonymity was warranted?
Comment by Matt — October 4, 2006 @ 8:50 pm
Outing this young man is the stupidest thing I have seen a blogger do in a long time.
1. No parent in the U.S. is going to give a rats ass about the difference between being 17 years and x months old, and being 18 years and 2 months old which appears to be the young man’s age when this particular i.m. conversation occurred. If Foley waited until a page or former page was 18 until hitting on them directly, it only shows that his actions were unethical and immoral instead of being unethical, immoral and criminal. The clear facts are that Foley “groomed” underage pages when they were in Washington with future sexual relationships in mind. Any other members of congress who knew what Foley was up to, even if they believed he would wait until the pages were 18 before attempting to bed them should still be kicked out of government with no further ado.
2. Now that the young man has been outed, there is no reason why he shouldn’t get in front of a microphone and tell the world EVERYTHING he knows about the matter.
Whatever he says WILL NOT BE GOOD for the Republican Party.
Comment by Peter — October 4, 2006 @ 9:01 pm
I predict that every gay person in politics and public office will be outed by the end of 2006. The gay democrats will be honored as heroes, and the gay Republicans will be crucified.
Comment by Googled Nation — October 4, 2006 @ 9:21 pm
So Foley is a creep but not a child molester. Seems resignation was the proper way to handle this. Looks like a bunch of political hay just went up in smoke.
Surprise!
Comment by Scott — October 4, 2006 @ 9:40 pm
He wasn’t the only page that Foley had an improper relationship with. He was one of many. Pages who are now in their 20s are coming forward and talking about Foley’s advances on them when they were 16.
You may think that 16 isn’t still a child, but when you have children yourself you’ll realize that it is indeed very young. Foley’s old enough to be their grandfather, and the content of those messages is salacious self-gratification on Foley’s part.
Comment by Jackie — October 5, 2006 @ 12:47 am
“What it does is question if the media is protecting the identity of an 18 year old, apparently the victim of no crime or sexual assault, one month before an election.”
Because the young man was underaged when Foley tried to solicit him for either actual sex or internet sex. Because it’s common practice and decency to not reveal the identity of victims of sexual abuse without permission of the victim.
Further because you and Billy Kerr are essentially tampering with a possible witness to a criminal act. Further because you essentially hurt the young man’s reputation both personally and career-wise.
You and Kerr are real lowlife scum
Comment by DT — October 5, 2006 @ 11:25 am
The big story is now the media, particularly ABC news, and how they mislead the American people. They said the im exchange was with someone under the age of 18. This turns out to be false.
The age of the alleged victim was an integral part of the story. It is hard to imagine how they could accidentally make a mistake like this.
Couple this with the questions already coming up on the timing of the release, and this October surprise may have just blown up in the faces of the Democrates.
Comment by Tom — October 5, 2006 @ 1:07 pm
You have all been had. What morons. You jumped to conclusions and fell flat on your face.
Ha Ha!
Comment by Art — October 5, 2006 @ 2:06 pm
Final thoughts yet?
For the umpteenth time, I think Foley is an indefensible jerk and an asshole who betrayed the public trust and resigned as he should have. But if it’s true that the young men were cynically playing with him… While that…
Trackback by Classical Values — October 5, 2006 @ 8:31 pm
a moral question now, not a legal question
That’s pretty much what’s left if the damning instant message turns out to be a joke. And Foley has resigned, hasn’t he? That leaves the dangling moral question(s) for the voters to ponder. I think at this point they’re entitled…
Trackback by Classical Values — October 5, 2006 @ 10:14 pm
Foley is a dirty old man. Any page who fed his perversion by responding to or encouraging his IM’s as Edmond did, are equally at fault.
Comment by James Nolan — October 6, 2006 @ 1:54 pm
So, Miss Foley didn’t screw any pages. Good for him, and let him explain to his partner of 19 years, the Jewish dentist, just what he was doing so avidly chatting up/icking out teen pages. But I do absolutely hope that this brings down the Republican one-party rule. Bush has screwed our financial future and allowed a bunch of cowardly, lunatic neocons drive OUR foreign policy, bloodying our hands, wounding our soldiers, sullying our name and subjecting us to the dictatorship of AIPAC, despite their obvious espionage attacks on this nation. Mark Foley, you’re a mensch, you really are!
Comment by Antaeus — October 9, 2006 @ 2:33 am
good story.
Comment by ari — November 23, 2006 @ 9:38 am
[…] Ok, so the real problem then was sexual harasement in the workplace. Foley shouldent have been sending inaproperate mesages to Edmund while he was working in his office as apage. ….. No again. Turns out that Jordan Edmund let the page program in June 2002. […]
Pingback by Jack Elfrink Dot Com » Blog Archive » More scorekeeping — October 29, 2007 @ 10:02 am
[…] wtf.. the “foley 18″ search on google news. the new stories found are removed as quickly as they appear http://www.slowplay.com/archives/2006/10/04/mark-foley-page-identified-jordan-edmund.php i got that as the first result […]
Pingback by World Politics » Well explain why he quit and came up quickly with the story about being molested by a preist and quite suddenly — October 29, 2007 @ 11:44 am