But Dennis still has an out. I’ll explain more soon.

From Wash Post:

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert’s chief of staff confronted then-Rep. Mark Foley about his inappropriate social contact with male pages well before the speaker said aides in his office took any action, a current congressional staff member with personal knowledge of Foley and his behavior with pages said yesterday.

The staff member said Hastert’s chief of staff, Scott Palmer, met with the Florida Republican at the Capitol to discuss complaints about Foley’s behavior toward pages. The alleged meeting occurred long before Hastert says aides in his office dispatched Rep. John M. Shimkus (R-Ill.) and the clerk of the House in November 2005 to confront Foley about troubling e-mails he had sent to a Louisiana boy.

The staff member’s account buttresses the position of Foley’s onetime chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, who said earlier this week that he had appealed to Palmer in 2003 or earlier to intervene, after Fordham’s own efforts to stop Foley’s behavior had failed. Fordham said Foley and Palmer, one of the most powerful figures in the House of Representatives, met within days to discuss the allegations.

So that doesn’t mean that Hastert explicitly knew, but this suggests that his staff did know something way before November 2005, when they say they had first heard about Foley’s behavior.

In fact…

Hastert’s office contends that the first confrontation with Foley occurred in November 2005, when Shimkus, the head of the House Page Board, and then-House Clerk Jeff Trandahl took Foley aside to discuss what they termed “over-friendly” e-mails that Foley had sent to a Louisiana boy. Fordham’s account not only pushed the matter back at least two years but also indicated that alarms over Foley’s behavior had gone well beyond bland e-mails.

Sources close to Fordham say Trandahl repeatedly urged the longtime aide and close family friend to confront Foley about his inappropriate advances on pages. Each time, Foley pledged to no longer socialize with the teenagers, but, weeks later, Trandahl would again alert Fordham about more contacts. Out of frustration, the sources said, Fordham contacted Palmer, hoping that an intervention from such a powerful figure in the House would persuade Foley to stop.

Now, a second House aide familiar with Foley and his actions told The Washington Post yesterday that “Scott Palmer had spoken to Foley prior to November 2005.” The aide spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter is now the subject of a criminal investigation and the House ethics committee inquiry.

However, just in case you think this let’s Hastert off the hook…there’s this bit of info…

Palmer, who shares a townhouse with Hastert when they are in town, is more powerful than all but a few House members. Members know that he speaks for Hastert.

So, Palmer is trapped right now. He can deny accusations from somebody who resigned over this scandal, but this secondary confirmation deals a particularly damaging blow to his deniability. And if Palmer is trapped, so to is Hastert. Sure, Palmer can fall on his sword and save the Speaker, but that’s going to be hard to do at this point. The “common knowledge” meme is starting to spread because more and more people are backing it up independent of one another.

In other words, it appears as if Foley’s activities were known quite well in small circles within the Republican party. How small those circles were will be the difference between Hastert staying and Hastert resigning.

More as it develops…