Bobby Charles wants to be Maine's next governor. Twenty years ago, when House Republican leaders were accused of ignoring warnings about a congressman who was sending sexual messages to teenage boys, Charles went to the newspapers to defend the man in charge.

That man was House Speaker Dennis Hastert. And the thing Charles held up as proof of Hastert's character was his long career coaching high school boys.

What Charles wrote in 2006

In the fall of 2006, Florida Rep. Mark Foley resigned from Congress after his sexually explicit messages to teenage male pages came to light. The scandal quickly turned to what Hastert's office had known and when.

The House Ethics Committee later concluded that Hastert's chief of staff and chief counsel had both been aware of warnings about Foley, and the Speaker's office failed to act. Rep. John Boehner, who later became Speaker himself, said he told Hastert about Foley's conduct that spring and was assured it was being handled. Nothing happened until the press broke the story months later. Hastert faced calls to step down.

That's when Charles, according to American Journal News, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Times defending him. The newly unearthed column says Hastert "taught school for 16 years, served as a revered high school wrestling coach, and was tapped for Congress precisely because of his uncompromising commitment to education and kids." It praised him for having "devoted more time to saving kids and families from the scourge of illegal drugs than any member of Congress," and closed by calling Hastert the embodiment of "Norman Rockwell's America."

What the country learned about Hastert

Nine years later, the truth about the wrestling coach came out. In 2016, federal prosecutors said Hastert had sexually abused five students when he was a teacher and coach. Four were wrestlers on his team at Yorkville High School; the fifth was the wrestling team's equipment manager. Hastert had been paying one of them hush money, and he was convicted over those payments.

Charles's 2006 defense rested on the very part of Hastert's life that turned out to be the crime scene.

His sister says they were close

This wasn't a stranger's op-ed. In an op-ed of her own this month, Charles's sister Anita wrote that "Bobby was a close friend and colleague of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert from 1995 to 1999. He praised Hastert and benefited from their relationship as he built his career in Washington." She added: "Bobby has never publicly renounced that association."

Anita Charles is voting for her brother's Democratic opponent, Hannah Pingree.

Charles went on to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for narcotics and law enforcement from 2003 to 2005, while Hastert was Speaker. We've already reported that more than a dozen audits found the bureau he ran couldn't account for billions.

The campaign's answer skips the op-ed

After his sister's column ran, Charles held a press conference denying he ever knew about Hastert's abuse, and called it "monstrous." There's no evidence Charles knew about the abuse at Yorkville, and we aren't claiming he did.

But the 2006 op-ed isn't about what Charles knew about Yorkville. It was about the Foley scandal, which was public, and about House leaders who had been warned about a predator and did nothing. Charles chose to defend them in print, by pointing to Hastert's work with boys.

Asked about it by American Journal News, the campaign repeated its line that Charles "was never aware of any wrongdoing regarding Hastert." It didn't address the Foley scandal or the Washington Times column at all.

What the record shows

In 2006, as House leaders faced an Ethics investigation for failing to act on warnings about Rep. Mark Foley and teenage pages, Bobby Charles published an op-ed defending Speaker Dennis Hastert as a "revered high school wrestling coach" with an "uncompromising commitment to education and kids." Federal prosecutors later said Hastert had abused five students on or around his wrestling team. Charles's own sister says he was Hastert's close colleague from 1995 to 1999 and has never publicly renounced the association, and his campaign, asked about the op-ed, didn't address it.

Source

Bobby Charles has ties to Dennis Hastert and Mark Foley — American Journal News. Photo: Bobby Charles for Maine Governor, via American Journal News.