Tom Reynolds Won’t Seek Re-Election

The Albany Project reports that the guy who gave Christopher Ward carte blanche to (allegedly) steal from the NRCC, Tom Reynolds, has announced he will not run for re-election. I’m just guessing, mind you, but I predict this means that the investigation into the NRCC finance scandal is finding what is already readily apparent–that while Tom Reynolds was Chair, the NRCC organized itself in such a way to make it very easy for the Treasurer for all these committtees to either launder or steal money.

If I’m right, it also suggests just how incendiary the NRCC might become. After all, Reynolds was intimately involved in attempts to cover up Mark Foley’s pursuit of former male pages.

News reports indicate that a former Foley chief of staff, by all indications Fordham, tried to broker a deal with ABC News’ Brian Ross. According to Howard Kurtz’s column in the The Washington Post yesterday, Ross had asked to interview the Florida Republican after obtaining dozens of instant messages that Foley sent to teenage House pages. Foley’s former chief of staff told Ross on Friday that the congressman was quitting and that Ross could have that information exclusively if he agreed not to publish the raw, sexually explicit messages. [Washington Post, 10/2/06]

Some Questions About Reynolds’s Involvement:

1. Why did Congressman Reynolds authorize his own chief of staff to negotiate on behalf of disgraced Congressman Mark Foley? Did Reynolds know about the lewd IM conversations when he let Fordham advise Foley, and if so, when was he informed? Did Fordham share the IMs with Reynolds?

2. Instead of dispatching his chief-of-staff to keep ABC News from breaking the story, why didn’t Reynolds put the children first and go to authorities? Was Reynolds more worried about a political scandal than the safety of the children serving as Congressional pages?

3. What other assistance did Reynolds provide to help Foley avoid the scandal and the disgrace and possible criminal prosecution that would result?

4. Why is the NRCC refusing to return $100,000 from Foley, given that Reynolds knew of this disturbing behavior when the money was given in July of this year?

That was a scandal that contributed greatly to the GOP defeat. Yet Reynolds showed no remorse for his role in that scandal and stayed in the race.

Which raises the question–what about the NRCC scandal makes it worse then covering up the solicitation of minors?