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Ex-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who resigned Friday after reports of his improper communications with a former male House page were made public, was interviewed about some of those contacts by the chairman of the House Page Board and the then-Clerk of the House last year.
And late Friday night, the House passed a resolution directing the ethics committee to begin an inquiry into Foley's behavior.
"I'll just simply say that the House has given us direction to look into this matter and we intend to do so," said Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), chairman of the ethics panel.
Ranking member Howard Berman (D-Calif.) added that they will do it "quickly."
Both Hastings and Berman declined to comment when asked if they would look specifically into leadership and when they knew information about Foley.
At least four Republican House Members, one senior GOP aide and a former top officer of the House were aware of the allegations about Foley that prompted the initial reporting regarding his e-mail contacts with a 16-year-old House page. They include: Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (N.Y.) and Reps. Rodney Alexander (R-La.) and John Shimkus (R-Ill.), as well as a senior aide to Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and former Clerk of the House Jeff Trandahl.
Boehner strongly denied media reports late Friday night that he had informed Hastert of the allegations, saying "That is not true."
Reynolds refused to comment.
Shimkus, who chairs the page board, and Trandahl, who administered the program, met with Foley in 2005 after learning of Foley's e-mail exchange with the former page by Alexander. Shimkus released a detailed statement Friday night.
House sources said that Foley denied any improper sexual activity when confronted by Shimkus and Trandahl.
Their information only included some August 2005 e-mails that contained no references to sex or other improper behavior, and not the other messages that have been reported by ABC News.
According to a senior House GOP leadership aide, Hastert's office was informed of the interview shortly after it occurred, but Hastert himself was not told.
Rep. Dale Kildee (D-Mich.), who serves on the page board, was never told of the interview with Foley.
"I became aware of it this afternoon when [Shimkus] came by my office. I think we should have had a page meeting right away," Kildee said, referring to last year's discovery of Foley's e-mails.
When asked if was upset about being excluded, Kildee said yes, adding, "I've been on the page board for 20 years."
"I'm the chairman of the page board," Shimkus said when asked why he didn't include Kildee. "The Clerk and I addressed this issue."
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who introduced a privileged resolution friday night to require an ethics probe, criticized Republican leaders, who she said, "have known of the egregious behavior of Congressman Mark Foley, yet were prepared to adjourn tonight without an Ethics Committee investigation."
"The investigation must determine when Mr. Foley sent the inappropriate emails, who knew of them, whether there was a pattern of inappropriate activity by Mr. Foley with pages or former pages, when the Republican lead
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