On the October 5 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, NBC News correspondent Mike Viqueira falsely claimed that House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) has “largely stuck by his story that he didn't learn about the emails and the IMs and the rest of it until last Friday,” referring to electronic communications that then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) allegedly sent to underage pages. But as Media Matters for America has documented, several of Hastert's statements have not been consistent. He told the Chicago Tribune on September 29 that he “was not aware until last week of inappropriate behavior” by Foley. But Hastert said he did not challenge the assertion by Rep. Thomas Reynolds (R-NY) that Reynolds told him about the alleged emails between Foley and a congressional page earlier this year, saying, in a statement released by his office on September 30, that Hastert “has no reason to dispute Congressman Reynolds' recollection.”

Viqueira was reporting on a press conference held by Hastert earlier that afternoon, in which Hastert returned to his earlier claim that he had known of the Foley matter only since “last Friday.”

Hastert's inconsistent statements are not limited to those related to when he learned of the alleged emails. His position has changed on at least two other aspects of the scandal surrounding Foley.

As Media Matters noted, Hastert initially claimed that Foley stepped down without prodding from the Republican leadership, saying that the leadership “really didn't have a chance to ask him to resign.” But the following day on The Rush Limbaugh Show, Hastert claimed that the leadership had, in fact, intervened, saying "[w]e found out about it, asked him to resign."

Additionally, as Justin Rood pointed out on the weblog TPMMuckraker.com, Hastert has changed his story with regard to the debunked conspiracy theory that Democrats and the media orchestrated the Foley scandal. An October 5 article in the Chicago Tribune quoted Hastert as suggesting, without proof, that “ABC News” as well as “a lot of Democratic operatives” and “people funded by George Soros” were responsible for the scandal. However, when a reporter at Hastert's October 5 press conference questioned Hastert about this theory, he backed off of the claim, saying only that "[t]here's no ultimate, real source of information, but that's what I've read." On October 6, the Chicago Tribune reported that Hastert backtracked on the conspiracy allegations after receiving a call from “senior Republican officials,” who considered the allegations a “serious misstep” on Hastert's part.

From the October 5 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: So much of this involves: Who do you believe? Mike, as you know, the speaker has one point of view. He says nobody really warned me. A couple of the other leaders said that Reynolds, of course, and Boehner said, they did warn a staff member. He's just resigned. Said he did warn the speaker's staff people. Why don't they go lickety-split to the question at the top: Who's telling the truth? Why do they take weeks to do that?

VIQUEIRA: Well, good question. You know, Hastert has largely stuck by his story that he didn't learn about the emails and the IMs and the rest of it until last Friday, the day that Foley quit. I think a lot of Republican members now are starting to sympathize with the speaker, Chris. I'm hearing a lot about a potential backlash -- you know the speaker brought out the George Soros card today -- that the Democrats were after him. He singled out ABC News.

From the September 29 article in the Chicago Tribune:

Aides to the speaker say he was not aware until last week of inappropriate behavior by Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., who resigned on Friday after portions of racy e-mail exchanges between him and current and former underage congressional pages became public. But the aides conceded that they could not be conclusive on the timing.

From Hastert's September 30 press release:

Congressman Tom Reynolds in a statement issued today indicates that many months later, in the spring of 2006, he was approached by Congressman Alexander who mentioned the Foley issue from the previous fall. During a meeting with the Speaker he says he noted the issue which had been raised by Alexander and told the Speaker that an investigation was conducted by the Clerk of the House and Shimkus. While the Speaker does not explicitly recall this conversation, he has no reason to dispute Congressman Reynolds' recollection that he reported to him on the problem and its resolution.

From the October 3 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: Now, the -- I guess the big news is The Washington Times' admittedly conservative editorial page has asked for you to step down and resign, and you have said you're not going to do that. Correct?

HASTERT: Well, yeah. I'm not going to do that. What we've tried to do is -- focused on this Foley thing is -- do the right thing. We had two mess -- there were two pieces of paper out there, one that we knew about and we acted on; one that happened in 2003 we didn't know about, but somebody had it, and, you know, they're trying -- and they drop it the last day of the session, you know, before we adjourn on an election year. Now, we took care of Mr. Foley. We found out about it, asked him to resign. He did resign. He's gone. We asked for an investigation. We've done that. We're trying to build better protections for these page programs. But, you know, this is a political issue in itself, too. And what we've tried to do as the Republican Party is make a better economy, protect this country against terrorism. And we've worked at it ever since 9-11, worked with the president on it. And there are some people that try to tear us down. We are the insulation to protect this country, and if they get to me, it looks like they could affect our election as well.

From Hastert's October 2 press conference:

QUESTION: Could you clarify, sir, whether the leadership asked Foley to resign and also I believe you did go -- you left on Friday. Did you have an event in your district?

HASTERT: I think Foley resigned almost immediately upon the outbreak of this information, and so we really didn't have a chance to ask him to resign, and I left at the very end of the session, almost, before the very last vote.

From the October 5 article in the Chicago Tribune:

When asked about a groundswell of discontent among the GOP's conservative base over his handling of the issue, Hastert said in the phone interview: “I think the base has to realize after a while, who knew about it? Who knew what, when? When the base finds out who's feeding this monster, they're not going to be happy. The people who want to see this thing blow up are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives, people funded by [liberal activist] George Soros.”

He went on to suggest that operatives aligned with former President Bill Clinton knew about the allegations and were perhaps behind the disclosures in the closing weeks before the Nov. 7 midterm elections, but he offered no hard proof.

From the October 6 article in the Chicago Tribune:

Comments that Hastert made in a Tribune interview suggesting the scandal had been orchestrated by ABC News, Democratic political operatives aligned with the Clinton White House and liberal activist George Soros were considered a serious misstep in national Republican circles, an official said. Senior Republican officials contacted Hastert's office before his news conference Thursday to urge that he not repeat the charges, and he backed away from them in his news conference.

“The Chicago Tribune interview last night -- the George Soros defense -- was viewed as incredibly inept,” a national Republican official said. “It could have been written by [comedian] Jon Stewart.”