Top aide sits before page ethics panel

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061023/ap_on_go_co/congress_pages

Top aide sits before page ethics panel

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer 3 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The top political aide to Rep. Tom Reynolds appeared before a House ethics panel Monday as House investigators began their third week of taking testimony in the Mark Foley congressional page scandal.


Sally Vastola, executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee and a longtime top aide to Reynolds, R-N.Y., entered the panel's offices around 10 a.m. EDT.

Reynolds learned of Foley's inappropriate e-mails to a Louisiana teenager last spring from the boy's congressional sponsor and Reynolds says that he told House Speaker
Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., about it at the time.

Vastola's testimony seemed sure to touch on how Reynolds reacted when learning of problems with Foley's behavior toward pages and what other individuals Reynolds may have shared the information with.

Reynolds has yet to appear before the panel, which is looking into whether lawmakers and staff aides should have done more to prevent Foley from inappropriate interactions with pages. The known problems date back as far as 2001 or 2002, when Foley sent inappropriate e-mails to a page sponsored by Rep. Jim Kolbe (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz.

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