You're the page who took down the GOP.

How did that change your life?

Oh, wow.

So I would say it changed my life in a few ways.

One is that it came at a point where I was in my early 20s.

I was 21 when the Foley scandal came about, and it in some ways soured me on politics.

This is Zach Stanton.

I'm the digital editor at Politico magazine.

He was a congressional page almost two decades ago.

I came out of the page program very, very idealistic about the potential for politics

and the potential for Congress in particular to do good work.

And I still believe that there is that potential there.

I'm Scott Bland.

Welcome to Nerdcast.

And this is a story of how our own Zach Stanton reshaped Congress and ended the House Page program,

sort of single-handedly.

I don't know if I solely brought down the House Page program.

I think that what I did was brought something to light that revealed a lot of unsavory things and also revealed that the

potential for scandal was pretty high. It's a story of why he leaked the scandalous Mark Foley

instant messages and what he regrets about it. If you have a problem with fully grown adult men who are in Congress,

if the problem is that they are having sexual conversations with teenagers,

the issue is not the presence of the teenagers in Congress.

...