Top Republicans were negligent in failing to protect young interns from a lawmaker who resigned in an Internet sex scandal shortly before the November 7th elections, a congressional ethics panel concluded last night.
The bipartisan panel said it found no violation of ethics rules. But it said senior Republicans lawmakers and staff inadequately responded to warnings, some as long as a decade ago, about former Rep. Mark Foley, a Florida Republican.
It said a pair of Democratic aides had copies of some of Mr Foley's troublesome e-mails to interns late last year.
Mr Foley, a six-term lawmaker, resigned from the House of Representatives on September 29th after ABC Newsdisclosed that he had sent sexually explicit electronic messages to former teenage male interns, known as congressional pages.
The revelations triggered charges that Republicans had tried to cover up the matter, and it likely helped Democrats win control of Congress in last month's elections. While toughly worded, the ethics panel's report meted out no punishment other than to essentially reprimand those who it felt should have done more.
The panel wrote: "Failure to exhaust all reasonable efforts to call attention to potential misconduct ... is not merely the exercise of poor judgment; it is a present danger to House pages and to the integrity of the institution of the House."
It said: "A pattern of conduct was exhibited among many individuals to remain willfully ignorant of the potential consequences of former Representative Foley's conduct."
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican who survived calls in October that he step down in wake of the scandal, embraced the report. "I asked the committee to do this tough job promptly, and they have," Mr Hastert said in a statement.
"I am glad the committee made clear that there was no violation of any House rules by any member or staff."
With Democrats taking control of the new 110th Congress set to convene on January 4th, Mr Hastert will no longer be speaker.
Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, who will become the new speaker, said, "As a mother and as a leader in Congress, protecting the young people who serve as pages is a high priority."
The panel said it found that many people on and off Capitol Hill knew about Mr Foley's e-mails, including members of the media. It said the communications directors for the House Democratic caucus and campaign committee had copies of some of his electronic messages last year.
A Pelosi spokeswoman said she was unaware until the probe that the communications directors had copies.
The investigation found that concerns about the behavior of some on Capitol Hill were not confined to Mr Foley. A former clerk testified he thought Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona, the only openly gay Republican in Congress, "spent far too much time socially interacting with the pages." Mr Kolbe, who has long planned to retire this year, has denied any wrongdoing.