Muse

You're the page who took down the GOP.

How did that change your life? Oh, wow. So I would say it changed my life in a few ways. One is that it came at a point where I was in my early 20s. I was 21 when the Foley scandal came about. And it, in some ways, soured me on politics. This is Zach Stanton.

I'm the digital editor at Politico magazine. He was a congressional page almost two decades ago.

I came out of the page program very, very idealistic about the potential for politics and the potential for Congress in particular to do good work. And I still believe that there is that potential there.

I'm Scott Bland. Welcome to Nerdcast. And this is a story of how our own Zach Stanton reshaped Congress and ended the House page program. Sort of single-handedly.

I don't know if I solely brought down the House page program. I think that what I did was brought something to light that revealed a lot of unsavory things and also revealed that the potential for scandal was pretty high.

It's a story of why he leaked the scandalous Mark Foley instant messages and what he regrets about it.

If you have a problem with fully grown adult men who are in Congress, if the problem is that they are having sexual conversations with teenagers, the issue is not the presence of the teenagers in Congress. The issue is the behavior of the adult men.

As you might remember, it was a story that totally exploded. And it played a role in costing Republicans their House and Senate majorities. That was many years ago now. But as Congress is barreling toward another impeachment trial in the Senate, confirming new Biden appointees and still dealing with the massive ramifications from the January 6th attack on the Capitol, it got me thinking about how Congress deals with, or doesn't deal with, the fallout from internal scandal and the ensuing internal investigations. Maybe there are lessons we can learn from this. Or maybe the lesson is that it's really hard to stop politics as usual.

It would be difficult to come out of everything that I went through not feeling like there were some real bad actors who were not interested, actually, in getting to the bottom of what actually transpired, who were interested in their own sort of political self-preservation, and seeing that in some ways as an impediment to those more idealistic, altruistic goals that Congress has for itself.

The thing you got to know about Zach in order to understand what happens next is that Zach is a bona fide political geek.

I just got bit by the political bug as a middle school student, basically. And my dad had a CD of great speeches in American history that I would listen to over and over and over again, such that even now, in my mid-30s, I can recite many of those same speeches with, like, the ease that you can recall song lyrics. Jesse Jackson's 84 convention speech, You know, the, I'm not a perfect servant, I'm a public servant doing my best against the odds. As I develop and serve, be patient. God is not finished with me yet. You know, like, uh...

God is not finished with me yet.

It's not a skill that should impress anyone. And doesn't. Even as a teenager, he was politics-obsessed. The next several years of my, you know, adolescence, I really just threw myself into politics full speed. I volunteered for my congressman at basically every opportunity and ingratiated myself, I think, to his staff.

The PAGE program took between 60 and 72 high school juniors, 16-year-olds, who go and live in Washington, D.C. for anywhere between a semester and a year. And go to school there, and more importantly,

work on the floor of the House of Representatives.

And to get in, you have to be nominated by a member of Congress.

And my member happened to be the number two House Democrat at the time, so he had some sway, and I was able to get into the PAGE program.

And so, Zach arrives as a House PAGE in the fall of 2001.

You know, the closest thing I can liken it to is, like, arriving at Hogwarts, where it feels like this whole world that you never knew existed, but does exist, and now you're privy to. You're one of a small group of people who's privy to it. You know, it has dorms, basically, that only these 16-year-olds get to live in. The House Page High School is literally in the...

attic of the Library of Congress. I can't stress this enough that you have access as a congressional page that you do not have as a staffer. And I say this as someone who went back and worked as a staffer on Capitol Hill. There are famous alumni. Bill Gates was a House page. Tiger Woods was a House page. What? That's what I heard. The guy who was recently outed as anonymous, the anonymous inside the Trump administration. His entry into Washington politics was as a House page. And you come to understand all these really bizarre and unique things about the way Washington works. And you yourself have entry into all sorts of corridors, both literal and figurative, that most people don't. And most 16-year-olds obviously do not.

Zach's second week as a House page was September 11, 2001. And at one point after the planes hit the Twin Towers in New York, there was this extra plane that was unaccounted for somewhere in the sky. And people thought it was headed to D.C. We start running. The Capitol building evacuates.

It's a really chaotic scene. And you can also see across the river smoke rising from the Pentagon. It was just an extraordinarily bizarre historic moment to be there.

That whole experience banded the page class together.

It did make us all tighter. It made us trust one another. But in retrospect, in that particular moment, you're able to see how vulnerable these teenagers really are. And that becomes relevant when Congressman Mark Foley enters the scene.

Congressman Mark Foley was a Republican from the Palm Beach area in Florida. And he was friendly and approachable.

One thing that you learn pretty early on as a page is that no two members of Congress are really the same. There are different archetypes. There are some who are very much like what you'd imagine they're like on TV. Sort of cigar chomping guys who always sit in a particular place on the floor of the House. Like Congressman Barney Frank. Chewing on his cigars and reading the paper. There were some members that were just kind of jerks. Jesse Jackson Jr. once accused a classmate of mine of stealing a pizza that he had ordered and had delivered to the Democratic cloakroom for a late night vote. And he accused my classmate of like stealing it and hiding it somewhere, which wasn't the case. Then you've got some oddballs. James Traficant, who was sort of famously so.

Who loved to pepper speeches with Star Trek references.

He would say it incredulously. Beam me up, Mr. Speaker. This is an outrage. So you get a sense of just the wide range of different types of people that are there.

Congressman Mark Foley is telegenic, smooth, likable, good at nurturing relationships in Congress and also with celebrities.

One of the few Republicans that was really good at maintaining relationships with celebrities. Mary Bono, who was the congresswoman who was married to Sonny Bono of Sonny and Cher, nicknamed him Hollywood.

Which gives some insight into how others saw him.

You know, he was very friendly and there was a dark side to that friendliness. And that was that he had initiated sexual conversations with a number of teenage congressional pages. He had been messaging with a couple of classmates of mine using AOL Instant Messenger.

Remember that? You've got mail. Where you could basically instant message folks. And he had very frank, very graphic sexual conversations with a few classmates of mine.

And I think what he was probably unaware of was that Instant Messenger automatically kept transcripts.

Kept files of every conversation that users have. And you could access them on your computer. And so some of the transcripts of those conversations were passed around among members of Zach's class.

Passed around as sort of like, look how weird this is. It wasn't passed around as like evidence of criminality or the way that you would perhaps think about it now or the way that you should think about it. It was more just like, this is weird, isn't it? How weird is this? Ha ha. And this was something that I had thought about on and off after leaving the PAGE program and had mostly forgotten about it until about 2006.

In 2006, Zach's in college. He's four years out of the PAGE program.

And then on September 28th, 2006, ABC News has this article about Congressman Mark Foley having had these sort of odd emails back and forth with a former PAGE. And the emails are flirtatious. They're inappropriate, but they're not frankly sexual.

The kind that might raise the hair on the back of your neck, but they weren't explicit. For example, Foley had asked for a photo of a former PAGE.

And his office explained it away by saying, look, there's a lot of former pages. They ask for letters of recommendation and we need photos to remember who they are. So you can read that and say, OK, maybe this is possible.

But his office denies that there's anything untoward going on here and says that this is part of a coordinated Democratic smear campaign and that he hasn't engaged in any sort of inappropriate conversations. Conversations are inappropriate relationships with teenagers. And I know that that's not true. It somehow hadn't occurred to me that like this was behavior that Mark Foley had engaged in year after year with page class after page class. But of course it was. Obviously it was. It wasn't just isolated to my class. It recontextualized it for me. It suddenly didn't seem like this funny, weird thing that happened during my page class. It seemed disturbing. And also disturbing was his explanation that it was like a partisan smear campaign.

And Zach also knows that there's proof that Congressman Foley had sent messages that were much more sexually explicit than the ones ABC had at that moment. So that day he decides to leak them.

So a couple of things happened in pretty rapid succession. I contacted another former classmate of mine who I knew had copies of the transcripts. And I asked if I could have copies of the transcripts again. And he said, yes, you know, so long as you don't send them to the news media. I, of course, told him I won't do that and immediately did. And I emailed ABC News. I emailed one of the reporters who was on the story. And she got back to me saying that they were interested in what I knew or what I would have to say and to send any files over. So I sent over this trove of these transcripts from AOL Instant Messenger of conversations Congressman Foley had had with two different classmates of mine. And the next morning, ABC News, while they are trying to verify the veracity of these, goes to Congressman Foley's office with the transcripts and basically asks, like, are these conversations that were had? Are these things that the congressman said to teenagers? And his communications director says, you know, let me look into this and get back to you. And in about an hour, Mark Foley resigned from Congress.

Good evening. A congressional career. After ABC News sends Foley's office the transcript to get comment, an aide calls back and tells ABC News that Foley is going to resign.

The honor of the Speaker, House of Representatives, sir. I hereby resign as the representative of the 16th Congressional District of Florida, effective today. Signed sincerely, Mark Foley, member of Congress.

And Zach finds out while he's visiting his brother in college. In his dorm room.

And I got a call on my cell phone from 202 area code number. So I knew it was in Washington, D.C. And I went into the stairwell to get some level of privacy, I guess. And, you know, I pick up. Hey, Zach, this is Matty with ABC News. Just wanted to let you know that Congressman Foley resigned. You should be really proud of yourself. It starts at that point to, like, actually become a news story. It starts to become a national news story. Because now it's Congressman Foley resigning. It means that there is legitimacy to these transcripts.

It completely blows up on the national news.

It's such a tawdry and upsetting scandal that it's in some ways made for TV. There's this digital paper trail in some ways where it is explicit. It is clear what he said. It is clear how inappropriate it was. You know, some of these transcripts, he is just out and out asking a teenager to, you know, masturbate. He is asking him to measure his genitals. He is at the same time having these conversations when the teenager says, like, hey, gotta go, my mom is calling or something like that. And it's bizarre because I'm an anonymous source for what is, at that point, about to become the biggest story in the country. And I'm trying to maintain my anonymity. And I'm trying to do that at the same time that the story is directly about conversations that classmates of mine, friends of mine, had with Congressman Foley.

that they don't know that I'm the source on. And so there is interest on the part of them to figure out who the source is. There's an interest on the part of the news media to try and figure out who the source is. There's an interest on the part of partisans to try and figure out who the source is to possibly try and discredit this or limit the damage that this scandal can have. And here I am sort of at the center of it.

And over the next few days, ABC News begins publishing the transcripts provided by Zach. And then it was everywhere. Like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

You and your boxers, too? Nope, just got home. I had a college interview that went late. Well, strip down and get relaxed. Another message. What you wearing? T-shirt and shorts. Love to slip them off of you. There you have it. ABC's Brian Ross. Worst phone sex operator ever.

It becomes this story that occupies all the oxygen on cable news.

Zach had asked ABC to redact all the screen names in the transcripts he sent. And they do. But they miss just one. And the victim, Zach's friend, is outed.

His name starts being thrown around. You know, he's sort of publicly outed as the victim, the recipient of these messages. And it's terrifying. It's awful. And it feels awful. You know, he is a friend of mine. Certainly at that point, you know, is a friend of mine. Someone I care about. Someone who is interested in politics and who seems like he has... Who does have his whole life ahead of him. I mean, hell, he was 21. And immediately, once his name is outed, you start having people online say that, oh, he's... Must be part of some sort of Democratic conspiracy to launch this October surprise that would damage the Republicans. At this point, we're a month out from Election Day.

The story is catching fire so fast that Zach starts to get freaked out.

That evening at 8.09 p.m., I emailed Maddie Sauer from ABC News. Do I have anything to worry about? Maddie responded at 8.32. I would not be surprised if you and many other pages are contacted for questioning. But I cannot imagine the House is looking to blame the pages for this. That would be a ridiculous thing for them to do politically. At that point, my fear is growing. You know, she's confirmed that, you know, I'm going to be contacted for questioning. And I would much rather have that be on my own terms or in some way that I can control than for the FBI to just, like, show up at my dorm room. And at that point, I basically cold call the FBI. I use their tip line and explain what the situation is, who I am, and give my contact information. It is bizarre to just, like, cold call the FBI. But, you know, that's what I did. Doesn't immediately hear back. As I recall, nobody gets back to me right away. Goes to bed. What does happen. And then the next day. Is that I get a phone call from my dad. The FBI arrives. And he says, Zach, the FBI is here at our house. They pound on the front door in the way that they do, in a particular way, where they stand to the side of the door and pound on it with their fist. And, you know, of course, I'm not there. I'm living in a dorm room. And so they said that they're going to come to my dorm. It's sort of an oh shit moment.

Zach meets with the FBI a few days later near campus at 7.30 a.m. Everything about it is weird. So I get up very early. I think a college student getting up at 7.30 a.m. for anything is pretty weird, too.

Walk to their offices, which are in like a business park type development. So I go up there and, you know, it's a very imposing FBI agent who turns out to be a nice guy. You know, like the conservative dad of a high school classmate who is like really into hockey. He's very thorough and keeps me in his office for a few hours while he asks me very detailed questions. He, you know, Xeroxes my page class yearbook. You know, asks for contacts of other pages. So, yeah, the FBI was fine, but it was certainly a bizarre, bizarre talk. So at this point, you know, my classmates, generally speaking, don't know it's me. They don't know who the source is. But the scandal has sort of grown and grown and grown. And Election Day is approaching.

Almost immediately after Congressman Foley resigns, Speaker Dennis Haster launches an investigation saying he wants to... figure out who knew what when and meanwhile the blogs online are foaming at the mouth i'm also

aware that there is sort of a hunt online among sort of the fever swamps of the internet to try and figure out who the sources are and you know there are a number of conservative blogs that have commenters going wild that are just like making all sorts of wild accusations some of which implicate me by name you know one of which says you know this you know zach stanton has been on my radar for the last week you know there's a lot more about him that is that will come out soon you know a lot that madame pelosi and others will be unhappy about all sorts of bizarre accusations bizarre

things being said about me and a lot of zach's former page classmates are having very similar

experiences you know there are reporters randomly showing up to their dorm rooms at their colleges or following them around campus you know i start to get a little paranoid about this i also start around this time getting phone calls to my dorm room in the middle of the night where the person says nothing stays on the line i can hear them breathing this happens to me several times and uh i eventually just unplug the phone from the wall but it certainly speaks to the paranoia the

sense of danger that you have in that moment okay so the backdrop to all of this swirling around is that the last midterm election of the bush administration is barreling toward election day as all this is happening republicans have held the house for the last 12 years at this point and it's now looking like democrats might be able to retake the majority and the senate is up for grabs too and the foley

scandal becomes tied to the election they all were enablers now it seems like a foregone conclusion that democrats are going to retake congress and so you have you know some people online who are just making up these conspiracy theories and implicating this classmate of mine and it just i feel just repulsed and incredibly guilty about about this he didn't ask for this i never asked him uh to share these uh these conversations that he had had you know in some ways his life is irreparably harmed

on election day the results come in democrats retake the senate and the house nancy pelosi becomes the first woman speaker of the house they took power for the first time in a dozen years

i accept this gavel in the spirit of partnership so at this point the scandal has sort of grown and grown and grown and it's becoming a lot for me to handle and so i decide to take a week off class and go visit one of my page school classmates at columbia university where he was studying and i arrive in new york and within minutes of getting off my plane my phone rings and it is lawyers from the house ethics committee who are investigating the foley scandal and they tell me that they need to talk to me and that there are basically two ways that this can go down one is that i can agree to participate with them in which case my anonymity will be kept and you know my involvement will be secret or i can decline their invitation in which case they'll subpoena me and it'll be

public so i agree to talk to them and eventually the house committee investigating the scandal releases their report several different members of congress go on record in the report saying that former speaker dennis hastert the same person who pushed for the investigation in the first place had knowledge

foley's behavior all along after the report comes out it's over for a while there's not really anyone held responsible for what happened but one entity does end up being held responsible and that is the page program itself and what happens in the summer of 2011 is that speaker pelosi and republican house leader john boehner make a joint statement that they are ending the house page program the chance for scandal is simply too great too great in the eyes of many political leaders that you know the the potential downsides just outweighed any benefit and so they end up shuttering the page program on the house side it still exists on the senate side but it's it's gone it's been gone for coming up on a decade now the foley scandal was

the foley scandal was really the first political scandal of the fully digital age.

You know, you had had, when you're looking at big electoral scandals in years prior, you can look at things like the Clinton affair with Monica Lewinsky, but that was really almost like the end of a certain era. I mean, you had recorded phone conversations there, but there hadn't been anything that was a scandal that was purely about things that happened online in quite this way. And so here you had, at the dawning of the social media age, before the founding of Twitter, I believe, you had this scandal based on instant message transcripts.

And that friend whose life's act was worried that he'd ruined? He's okay.

Back in 2015, I decided to write this piece, and granted it was nine years after the scandal at that point. And I decided to write it mostly because I had been thinking a lot of these things for quite some time and thought, you know, I should probably write this or at least stop thinking about it. And the process of writing, it was cathartic in many ways. It was somehow therapeutic to just like, get these thoughts out of my head. And one thing that it had allowed me to do was to reach out to, you know, the friend of mine who had had almost all these conversations with Congressman Foley. And I did this well in advance of the piece coming out to let him know that I was writing something. And I sent him a rough draft of it. And he read it very fully. And then we got together for lunch in downtown DC. And just talked for like two or three hours. And it was a very emotional conversation. You know, he made clear that he didn't blame me for anything. And there was no bad blood between us. And also made clear that he didn't feel that his life had been ruined by me, which was a bit of a relief to hear. Um, even as I know that, you know, obviously it caused him enormous grief and damage. It's ended up with our relationship being in a much better place, you know, where we still text and, you know, talk to one another on Instagram or wherever. I mean, we'll get together for drinks when he's in DC and we enjoy one another's company. And that's certainly different than I would have expected. And it's also, I would just say a big relief to no longer have that sort of weight on my shoulders.

Finally, Zach, any advice for someone about to leak?

Of any advice for someone about to leak? Yeah, I mean, leak to Politico, sure. But I would say that, yeah, think about it. It's not all downside and not everything is going to be a national scandal. And even if it is a national scandal, it doesn't mean that it wasn't worth it to leak. You know, there can be a stigma associated with leaking, but, you know, it is also a fundamental way to hold power accountable. And there's something there that you can feel good about. And if you're doing it for the right reasons, then I think that it's okay.

All right, that's our show. Our producer is Amy Reese. Our senior producer is Jenny Amit. And our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Our illustrator is Bill Cookman. If you like our show, then like it. Leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. It helps more people find the show. And while you're doing that, check out some of our other podcasts, Politico Dispatch, Politico Energy, and Pulse Check, just to name a few. We'll talk to you again next week.

Even now, if I'm doing a mic check or something, I routinely just instinctively go to, you know, 10 days ago, President Reagan admitted that although some people in this country seem to be doing well nowadays, others aren't happy, even worried about themselves, their families, and their futures. The president said that he didn't understand that fear. I could go on and on and drone on and on. It's a long speech. He said, why this country is a shining city on a hill. And the president is right.