Foley Fallout: Early Warnings?

Kirk Fordham, the ex-chief of staff to Mark Foley and Tom Reynolds, now says that he warned the Republican leadership of lewd correspondence from Mark Foley over three years ago.

Fordham said he was serving as Foley's chief of staff when he was told about the lawmaker's inappropriate behavior toward pages more than three years ago. He said he had "more than one conversation with senior staff at the highest level of the House of Representatives asking them to intervene" at the time.

Fordham declined to identify the officials in Hastert's office he spoke with.

Two members of the GOP leadership say they told Hastert this past spring they had heard Foley had sent overly friendly e-mails to a page. Hastert said over the weekend he does not recall those conversations, but has not disputed they took place.

Hastert and Tom Reynolds are denying that they knew anything about the lewd IM's and emails from Foley.

The question is, why is Fordham now slamming the GOP House brass after first trying to protect Foley and then toeing the party line by blaming Democrats for his resignation? Okay - that resignation statement is bogus, but how could he turn on Foley so quick? Wasn't he just trying to hide the offending IM's and emails from the press?