(Reuters) - Former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert was indicted on Thursday on federal charges including making false statements to the FBI, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago said
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The Illinois Republican, who left office in 2007, was charged with structuring the withdrawal of $952,000 in cash in order to evade the requirement that banks report cash transactions over $10,000, and lying to the FBI about his withdrawals, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement.
Each count of the two-count indictment carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Hastert, 73, was not immediately available for comment.
According to the indictment, the misconduct involved payments to an unnamed individual who had been a Yorkville, Illinois, resident and had known Hastert for most of the person’s life.
Around 2010, Hastert met with the person several times and discussed past misconduct by Hastert. Eventually, Hastert agreed to pay the person $3.5 million in compensation and to conceal unspecified misconduct, the indictment said.
Shortly afterward, Hastert began making cash payments to the unnamed person, according to the indictment
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Hastert served as a Republican congressman from suburban Chicago for more than 20 years before resigning from the House in November 2007, having lost the speaker's job when Democrats gained control of the House in the 2006 elections.
Hastert joined the Washington law firm Dickstein Shapiro in 2008 as a senior adviser. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange said on Thursday that Hastert resigned from its board.
(Reporting by Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Another corrupt asshole from Illinois. I probably shouldn't be happy, but I am ecstatic this fat, jaggoff got indicted. We will always have this asshole to thank for the Hastert rule which stipulates that Republicans cannot pass any bill that cannot be passed without a majority of the majority. I hope this fat gasbag goes down and gets a cell next to Blagojevich.
ReplyDeleteWe need term limits plain and simple. Without them these pricks sit on capital hill building fiefdoms for years at the taxpayers expense.
ReplyDeleteTerm limits sound good, but what guarantees that the same old crowd, just different faces, won't be elected? What we really need is campaign finance reform so that the same minions aren't reelected over and over thanks to financing by their wealthy handlers.
ReplyDeleteThe scandal brewing around Dennis Hastert this week spread into his evangelical faith community with news that he stepped down from a board position at Wheaton College – the prominent evangelical school from which he graduated and where he established a major governmental program.
ReplyDeleteFormer House speaker Dennis Hastert resigned from the school’s board of advisers of its J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy, a $10 million project housed in the college’s politics, international relations, business and economics departments.
Wheaton isn't that where louman's boy Ronnie graduated from?
DeleteTurns out Hastert was paying blackmail to avoid his gay relationship with a former page from being revealed.
ReplyDelete