Politico reports:
An aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged for the first time that her office learned of concerns about Massa far earlier than previously known. . . A Pelosi aide told POLITICO on Wednesday evening that Massa’s chief of staff, Joe Racalto, informed a member of Pelosi’s “member services” operation in October that Massa was living with several aides, had hired too many staff members and used foul language around his staff.
Racalto also raised concerns about “the way Massa ran his office” and informed Pelosi’s member-services staffer that he had asked Massa to move out of the group house on Capitol Hill, the Pelosi aide said.
Democratic insiders say Pelosi’s office took no action after Racalto expressed his concerns about his then-boss in October. . .
When news of that investigation broke last week, Pelosi told reporters that her office had previously heard a rumor about Massa, but that there had been “no formal notification” of allegations against him.
The situation is actually quite similar to the 2006 Foley situation. Just as in the Foley case, the leadership knew early of some problems with Massa but not (as far as we currently know) the worst of them, and did nothing.
POSTSCRIPT: Of course, a big difference between the two situations is that in Foley’s case, the opposition leadership (specifically Rahm Emanuel, now White House chief of staff) also knew of the problems with Foley and did nothing, preferring to wait until election season to spring the scandal. Interestingly, Emanuel also seems to have played a role in the Massa scandal, and in the Mahoney scandal in 2008. Funny how that name keeps coming up.
(Via the Corner.)
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