for years. It's been reported for days in various publications that Ron Hikel, Massa's deputy chief of staff and legislative director, was the one who first spoke to Hoyer's staff about the allegations of improper conduct in early February and then later notified the Ethics Committee of allegations of improper conduct. Hikel's last day of employment with Massa was Feb 26.
Snips from transcript of March 9 Larry King Live (site has a disclaimer that it's a rush transcript, not final and may be revised):
KING: According to "The Post," the allegations date back at least a year. "The Post" says your former deputy chief of staff provided the information about the staffers' allegations to the House Ethics Committee three weeks ago.
MASSA: Well, I...
KING: Have you spoken to him?
MASSA: No, I have not. In fact, this is the first time I've heard anyone say that my former deputy chief of staff, a man who lived with my family -- lived with my family for years, in my home, counselor and disciplinarian to my children, one of my wife's best friends, never said a word to me at all, as has no one else.
<snip>
MASSA: It breaks my heart. I mean this is a man who was as close to me as my father. His portfolio was health care. His portfolio was health care. He -- he is one of the foremost experts in national health care policy in the world. And he -- we literally, after four years of campaigning together and -- and four years before that being close friends, he was...
KING: All right...
MASSA: -- one of the first guys I called and said, should I run for Congress?
Full transcript here:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1003/09/lkl.01.html King's CNN website also puts up podcasts, if anyone's interested.
Other reports of his appearance on King appear to say that Massa said he and his former deputy were friends for forty years. I didn't watch Massa on King so I don't know if that's the case, perhaps the transcript has an error in years they've been friends. Apparently Hikel was at Columbia University in the early 60's so he's a much older guy:
http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/ron-hikel/7/544/431