You know, this pisses me off. I was really hoping to use today's diary allotment to talk about today being the real Katrina anniversary, when those of us who live in neighborhoods other than the Quarter and Uptown began to dribble back into town to start rebuilding our houses and hoods (plus a paen to the importance of red beans--with recipe). Instead, I'm writing about Foley and the 'pubs. But I think the story's worth sharing.
Update:I posted this briefly earlier in the day, then removed it to check on a couple more details. I'm reposting it now to get Kossacks opinions.
I am a freelance writer living in Louisiana. When I saw the Saturday AP story on the Foley business and read of Rep. Rodney Alexander's role, I decided to poke around and see if I could get together a story on the angle to shop to local rags.
This morning, I started down a list of law enforcement organizations, calling the public affairs officers to ask what, if any, investigations they had going on Alexander's part in concealing the Foley allegations. The public information spokesperson at Attorney General Foti's office was very helpful, though she told me the AG's office wouldn't have begun any investigation unless referred by law enforcement at a local level.
Next stop was DC Metro. The PA spokesperson there said she knew of no investigation under way and said any referral to them would come from the Capitol Hill Police. She gave me their number and I continued down my list to the next local, the Ouachita Parish Sheriff's office (the page is from Monroe, LA in Ouachita Parish).
The PA officer in Ouachita (I'm leaving out names for the moment, as I'm still hoping to finish this story and get shopping) informed me that, since Alexander didn't live in the parish, the department had no jurisdiction to begin an examination.
I took a quick break to clean the kitchen. While I was cleaning the stove top, the phone rang. It was an aide from Alexander's office in Washington, asking what I was calling around about. I gave him the basics of the story and asked if the congressman was sticking to his story that he gave the AP: that the parents had requested that he drop the subject and that Alexander informed only the chairman of the Republican campaign committee. The aide said the congressman stood by his statement to the AP.
I then asked the aide two more questions: Was the congressman aware of his obligation under federal and state law to contact law enforcement when he learned from the allegations and was the congressman's office aware of any state or federal investigations into that failure. He said that they were aware of the FBI investigation and that was all they knew of.
All pretty predictable, except that I had not yet gotten around to calling the congressman's office for comment. Which tells me that either Foti's office or the Ouachita Parish Sherrif's office immediately called Alexander's office to tell 'em I was asking around about investigations.
In the end, all this did was save me the cost of a call to DC. But it did strike me as strange, and I thought I toss it out here to see what insights you might have. My sense of this is that these guys are utterly terrified of this story spreadng and are circling every wagon to keep it from going any further.