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Haggard: "I never kept it very long because it's wrong" (Update: 2:45 p.m.)
Ted Haggard this morning admitted to calling Mike Jones, buying methamphetamine from him, and hiring him for a massage, but continued to deny Jones's claims that he used the drugs or that he paid Jones for sex.

"I did call him. I did call him," Haggard told Denver television station KUSA as he drove out of his house this morning. "I called him to buy some meth but I threw it away. I was buying it for me but I never used it. … I never kept it very long because it's wrong. I was tempted. I bought it, but I never used it."

Jones has claimed that he arranged for Haggard to buy methamphetamine from a third party, and that he saw Haggard use it at least a dozen times to enhance their sexual activity.

Haggard told KUSA that Jones first brought up the drug. The former National Association of Evangleicals president admitted hiring Jones for a massage, but denied having sex.

"I went there for a massage," he said from his vehicle, as his wife and others sat in neighboring seats. He learned of Jones, he said, through "a referral from the hotel I was staying at" in Denver.

"We're so grateful that he failed the polygraph test this morning," Haggard said.

TV station that first named Haggard says "we would not have aired the story" without him (Update: 2:45 p.m.)
Mike Jones first publicly discussed his accusations against Ted Haggard on a morning talk radio program on Denver's KHOW. However, neither Jones nor Haggard were named, with Jones only identifying one of his clients as a nationally known religious leader based in Colorado Springs.

KUSA, the television station that had interviewed Jones about the accusations two months earlier, first named both Jones and Haggard in its 10 p.m. news broadcast, 16 hours after the interview on KHOW's Pete Boyles Show.

In a response to inquiries about why it ran its story, KUSA said that Jones "did not have enough proof for us to do this story" two months ago, but that it reconsidered its decision after the Boyles broadcast. "Because Jones had decided to go public, and it was a matter of time before Pastor Haggard's name came up, we contacted the Pastor and asked him if he knew about the allegations and wanted to respond," says the message, signed by KUSA's reporter on this story and two producers. "He had heard about them and chose to respond and that is why we did the story. To be fair to him, whether he wanted to respond determined whether we would broadcast a story. We would not have aired the story without hearing from Pastor Haggard."

New Life Church says Haggard confessed to some indiscretions (Update: 9:30 a.m.)
In an e-mail to staff members of New Life Church, acting senior pastor Ross Parsley says that some of the accusations against Ted Haggard are true.

"The board of overseers has met with Pastor Ted," Parsley wrote. "It is important for you to know that he confessed to the overseers that some of the accusations against him are true. He has willingly and humbly submitted to the authority of the board of overseers, and will remain on administrative leave during the course of the investigation."

Parsley also told Colorado Springs television station KKTV, "I don't have any accurate information about the precise details. I just know there has been some admission of indiscretion. Not admission to all of the material that has been discussed. But there is an admission of some guilt, and that's what we're working with, with outside overseers who are working with Pastor Ted and his family to investigate what's happened here."

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November (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50