AMERICAblog, again:
It's confirmed. Congressman Tom Reynolds' (R-NY) chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, tried to broker a secret deal last Friday to get ABC News to cover up the worst part of the Foley child predator scandal, the lurid five-plus-page instant message chat in which Foley asked a child to measure his penis and then led the child into a detailed discussion of masturbatory techniques.
To clarify, these were the most graphic IMs (well, of those that have been published). Reynolds' Chief of Staff tried to get ABC News to pull the plug on that part of the story in exchange for giving them the "exclusive" that Foley was about to resign. ABC's Brian Ross said no deal.
Reynolds is the chair of the NRCC, and one of the people who confirmed that he knew about the Foley problem last year -- and confirmed he told Hastert. Now his Chief of Staff is confirmed to have tried to pull the story about the IM's.
Fordham was previously only reported -- and not by name -- as being "Foley's former Chief of Staff", which led to some confusion. His current position is working for NRCC chair Tom Reynolds, one of the GOP leaders who knew of the reports against Foley.
Bad stuff.