The special subcommittee of the House ethics panel that's looking into the Foley scandal met again today, hearing testimony from two key witnesses.

Danielle Savoy, a former aide to Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA) -- who sponsored one of the pages who received inappropriate emails from Foley -- spoke with the panel this morning. Savoy was the first Alexander staffer the page told of the emails.

In the afternoon, Alexander's chief of staff, Royal Alexander (no relation), took the witness chair.

Also slated for appearance before the panel today: Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-MI), a member of the page board who says he was never told of Foley's behavior.

Tomorrow, the panel is expected to hear from House Sergeant at Arms Wilson Livingood, according to CQ (sub. req.). House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), is is scheduled to appear Thursday.

New questions are being raised over the credibility of the panel's probe, however. Existing political ties -- including donations from House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL), whose behavior is under investigation, to panel members -- have already cast doubt on the panel's trustworthiness.

Congressional Quarterly's Alan Ota takes a look at some of the ambitions held by GOP members of the panel -- ambitions that only Dennis Hastert has the power to fulfill:

Read more »

How does Majority Leader Boehner resolve the apparent contradictions of his public statements about whether he had discussed Mark Foley's emailing problem with Speaker Hastert?

Roll Call has the answer (sub. req.):

The Washington Post late last Friday reported that Boehner said he had discussed the issue with Hastert, and Hastert had assured Boehner, “We’re taking care of it.” Boehner and his aides later contacted the Post and other media outlets, including Roll Call, to retract the comment.

“That is not true,” he said after the Post’s initial report, and he contacted the Post to say he could not be sure he spoke to Hastert personally.

Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Boehner, said the comments were consistent with earlier statements in that it is Boehner’s recollection of events, but he is not absolutely certain of the conversation. “He still can’t be certain of that, but that is his recollection,” Madden said. [my emphasis]

Call it the Boehner Uncertainty Principle of Public Comment.

More on Majority Leader John Boehner's lucky pee break.

The casino Boehner hit, the Kewadin Casino of Manistique, Michigan, is way up in Michigan's upper peninsula. A number of readers have written in to ask, with some suspicion, what Boehner was doing up there. As TPMm reader DS put it, "there's a whole lot of nothing-but-pine-trees, swamps and logging camps (and trains loaded with pulp logs on the way to a paper mill somewhere) out there."

To illustrate the point, here's a map of the upper peninsula area. The red dot is where Boehner's lucky break happened:

Earlier this afternoon, I got a call back from Rep. John Boehner's press rep Kevin Madden, who gave me the following account:

Boehner had been in a meeting with Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) in "an adjacent district" to Michigan's upper peninsula. He was on his way to another event in Wisconsin.

On the way there (and Madden digressed here to mention that even though Boehner has caught flak for being a frequent flyer on corporate jets, he does "a lot of driving"), Boehner and his companions decided to stop off the main traveling highway for a break. There were some restaurants in the area, gas stations, etc. and they saw that a casino was nearby, so they went in there to use the restroom and take a break from travel. Boehner "played the casino and had a hit" while "he was waiting for his political aide" - to get back from the john, presumably.

That's his story and he's sticking to it.

We got a number of emails from TPMm readers in Michigan about today's item in the Daily Muck about Majority Leader John Boehner's (R-OH) lucky break at the slots. According to Boehner's spokesman, he won this money at a "rest stop" when he stopped off to go to the bathroom - his aide told The New York Times he gambled "to pass the time at a rest area while waiting for a colleague."

But there's a problem.

There are no rest stops with gambling in them, our intrepid readers pointed out. If you want to gamble in Michigan, you either go to Detroit, where there are three casinos, or to the numerous Native American casinos throughout Northern Michigan.

So what's Boehner talking about?

Well, on his disclosure form, Boehner reported that he'd won the money in Manistique, Michigan. So I called up the Manistique City Hall and asked, if I wanted to pee and gamble in Manistique, where would I go?

Turns out, I'd only have one option: the Kewadin Casino, which is run by the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. "Would you call that a rest stop?" I asked. "Well, they have bathrooms in there," replied Rebecca Weber, who works for the city of about 4,000.

So there. This is what Boehner calls a rest stop.

I left a message for Boehner's spokesman, but my call wasn't immediately returned.

Update: Apparently the above picture is of another Northern Michigan Kewadin casino. This, apparently, is what the one in Manistique looks like - more modest, but still a remarkable rest stop. Thanks to reader MT.