Investigators: FBI not wrong to dismiss complaint about Foley

The FBI misled reporters about its decision not to investigate a series of e-mails between former Rep. Mark Foley and a congressional page, but was justified in deciding not to open a case based on information provided in July 2006, Justice Department investigators said Monday.

A Justice inspector general's investigation cleared the FBI of accusations that officials were too quick in declining to open an investigation based on five e-mails from Foley, none of them explicit in nature, to a former page.

The e-mails were shared with the FBI in July, months before Foley resigned from the House, by the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The group asked the IG to look into the FBI's handling of the matter after the scandal broke in late September. While the e-mails were less damning than the instant messages later uncovered between Foley and a House page, the minor who forwarded the e-mails to a House staff member described them as "sick sick sick sick sick."

Justice IG Glenn Fine's study found that after several hand-offs between FBI units, the e-mails provided by the advocacy group reached the Cyber Crimes Squad, where a supervisory special agent decided not to open an investigation because there was nothing in the messages that constituted a crime. Inspectors concluded that the agent's decision fell into an appropriate "range of discretion," but said the group should have been informed of it.

"At a minimum, we believe the FBI should have notified CREW, the complainant in this case, that the FBI had declined to open an investigation," inspectors wrote, adding that CREW had been relying on the agency to pursue the issue and so had not taken other steps. The IG also noted that Foley's messages followed the lines of behavior that the FBI describes as "gradual seduction" in its Parent's Guide to Internet Safety.

Inspectors described the internal handoff of the case from a federal watchdog liaison agent to the Public Corruption Squad to the Crimes Against Children and Adult Obscenity Squad to the Cyber Crimes Squad, but found no indication that concern over pursuing a case against a congressman had factored into the agency's final decision not to investigate further. The FBI announced on Oct. 1 that an investigation would be opened into Foley's contacts with pages, just after his Sept. 29 resignation.

The advocacy group also asked the inspector general's office to investigate statements that Justice officials made to reporters in September that the agency had failed to act earlier because CREW had submitted only "heavily redacted" versions of the e-mails and had refused to provide further information when asked.

The watchdog group immediately contested those charges, and in its review, the IG office found that public statements attributed to FBI and Justice officials were not true. The only information redacted from the messages was the name and contact information of another person to whom the messages had been forwarded. The message bodies, the page's e-mail address and that of the House staffer to whom he reported the messages were all clear.

The IG office also found that the advocacy group participated in the only follow-up conducted by FBI agents, a telephone call from the liaison officer immediately after the messages were submitted. The group forwarded them to authorities immediately, not after a lag of several months, as media outlets reported an undisclosed official had suggested.

The inspectors attributed the misinformation to "misunderstandings" between FBI and Justice spokespeople, but said none of the three media representatives interviewed recalled giving out the inaccurate information.

"By forwarding the e-mails to the FBI for investigation, CREW stands out as the only party in this sordid affair to have done the right thing from the first instance," CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said Monday. "In marked contrast, not only did the FBI fail to investigate the possible sexual abuse of minors by a sitting member of Congress, the bureau then tried to cover up its shocking inaction by blaming CREW."

In a statement, Justice officials said Monday that FBI "will carefully examine the OIG review for any changes to existing policies or procedures that may be warranted."

Last week, the House passed legislation intended to ensure Congress would respond better to future incidents involving pages by expanding representation on the board overseeing the page program to include a former page who is not a member of Congress, and a parent of a current or former page.