US: A Republican congressman confronted his former colleague Mark Foley about sending sexually explicit e-mails to teenage boys as long ago as 2000 after a former congressional page said the messages made him feel uncomfortable.
Arizona's Jim Kolbe, the only openly gay Republican in Congress, showed Mr Foley copies of the e-mails and warned him about inappropriate contacts with teenage pages, according to the Washington Post.
The latest revelation comes as the House of Representatives ethics committee prepares to investigate the scandal this week, questioning current and former Republican officials about how much they knew about Mr Foley's activities and what they did to stop him.
Mr Foley's former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, is expected to testify under oath that, in 2003, he expressed concern about the Florida congressman's behaviour to Scott Palmer, chief of staff to House speaker Dennis Hastert. Mr Palmer has denied that Mr Fordham warned him about the congressman.
Former clerk of the House, Jeff Trandahl, who administered the congressional page programme, also says he warned the speaker's office about Mr Foley.
Mr Foley was re-elected to Congress in 2005 and appointed chair of the House committee on missing and exploited children.
Democrats are demanding that Republican leaders explain why, given that Mr Foley's predatory behaviour towards teenagers was known for so long, they failed to take action against him.
If Mr Palmer knew about Mr Foley's behaviour, he had ample opportunity to tell the speaker. The two men not only work together but share a house near the Capitol and travel together to Illinois most weekends.
This week's hearings, which will be held in secret, are likely to look closely at what happened during a meeting in late 2005, when Mr Trandahl and Republican congressman John Shimkus, who chaired the congressional board, confronted Mr Foley about e-mails he sent to a Louisiana teenager. The boy complained after Mr Foley asked him to send a picture of himself, a request the boy described as "sick". Mr Shimkus, who claims he told Mr Foley to cease all contact with the teenager, did not tell other members of the page board, who include a Democrat, about the meeting.
The ethics committee investigation is not limited to Mr Foley but has asked for information about any other inappropriate contact between congressmen and pages.
"We request that you contact current and former House pages sponsored by your office for the purpose of learning whether any of those individuals had any inappropriate communications or interactions with former Representative Foley or any other member of the House," the committee wrote to all members of the House.
The perception that Republicans covered up Mr Foley's behaviour rather than risk losing his safe Florida seat has hurt the party's candidates in next month's congressional elections. The party is especially worried about the scandal's impact on its core voters, including conservative Christians who may be tempted to stay at home rather than vote for a Republican party that has disappointed them.
The scandal has alerted conservatives to the fact that a number of senior Republicans on Capitol Hill are either openly or secretly gay, reinforcing a sense of estrangement between the leadership and the base.
Mr Hastert last week resisted calls for his resignation but many Republican candidates have distanced themselves from the speaker, cancelling campaign events with him and criticising his handling of the scandal.