Hastert's inner circle

* wapo:

"With House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert denying personal knowledge of former representative Mark Foley's activities, investigators for the House ethics committee are bearing down on three senior members of Hastert's staff to determine when they learned of Foley's actions and whether they passed on their knowledge to the speaker.

The three -- chief of staff Scott Palmer, deputy chief of staff Mike Stokke and counsel Ted Van Der Meid -- have formed a palace guard around Hastert (R-Ill.) for years, attaining great degrees of power and unusual autonomy to deal with matters of politics, policy and House operations. They are also remarkably close. Palmer and Stokke have been with Hastert for decades. They live together in a Capitol Hill townhouse and commute back to Illinois on weekends.
[]
For an institution replete with glory seekers, Hastert's inner circle has been virtually invisible to the outside world. Palmer has known Hastert for 28 years and worked on his first political campaign; he is the speaker's gatekeeper, a policy expert who swoops into negotiations to untie knots and seal deals. "

fun.

(must.resist.temptation.to.make.jokes.about.
hastert's.invisible.inner.circle.)

also interesting, wapo have now (?) added a comments section directly under the article. that's pretty amazing.

also interesting, I wonder how much Plamer and these guys know about the Turkish stuff. They may very well know about the <$200 campaign contributions - and one of the triumvirate may very well have been involved in picking up the suitcases of cash for Denny.