House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed Thursday that her staff kept her out of the loop about a “rumor” that Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) made unwanted advances on a male staffer, even though Majority Leader Steny Hoyer had known about the allegations for weeks. “I asked my staff. I said, ‘Have there been any rumors about any of this before?’” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference. “There had been a rumor, but just that. There was no formal notification to our office that anything happened. It was a one, two, three person rumor that had been reported to Mr. Hoyer’s office, that they reported to my staff, which they did not report to me because, you know what, this is Rumor City. There are rumors. I have a job to do, and I’ve been doing that.”