Posted on 05/29/2015 12:21:39 PM PDT by Red Badger
What We Know So Far
Hastert, the former Speaker of the House, was indicted Thursday on federal charges of evading reporting requirements and lying to the FBI The Illinois Republican allegedly agreed to pay an unnamed individual $3.5 million for previous misconduct
Source: Investigators considered including a second alleged victim in the Hastert indictment, but ultimately chose not to do so.
A source familiar with the investigation told BuzzFeed News that U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon considered but did not pursue additional charges against former Speaker Dennis Hastert, which would have included a reference to an Individual B, one of potentially several alleged victims of “prior misdeeds.”
According to this source, no additional charges are expected to be filed against Hastert at this point.
The Department of Justice had no comment. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois didn’t respond to a request for comment. A lawyer for representing Hastert in another pending legal matter didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Hastert reportedly paid a person from his past to conceal sexual misconduct, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The Times reported:
Indicted former House Speaker Dennis Hastert was paying an individual from his past to conceal sexual misconduct, two federal law enforcement officials said Friday.
One of the officials, who would not speak publicly about the federal charges in Chicago, said “Individual A,” as the person is described in Thursday’s federal indictment, was a man and that the alleged misconduct was unrelated to Hastert’s tenure in Congress. The actions date to Hastert’s time as a Yorkville, Ill., high school wrestling coach and teacher, the official said.
Posted at 12:45 p.m., May. 29 The Yorkville school district said Friday that officials there had “no knowledge of Mr. Hastert’s alleged misconduct” before Thursday.
Here’s the full statement:
Yorkville Community Unit School District #115 employed Mr. Dennis Hastert from 1965-1981. The District was first made aware of any concerns regarding Mr. Hastert when the federal indictment was released on May 28, 2015.
Yorkville Community Unit School District #115 has no knowledge of Mr. Hastert’s alleged misconduct, nor has any individual contacted the District to report any such misconduct. If requested to do so, the District plans to cooperate fully with the U.S. Attorney’s investigation into this matter.
Hastert, left, in 1975 as a wrestling coach. The Pantagraph
Former colleagues described Hastert as a “straight arrow” who was more focused on coaching wrestling than classroom teaching.
BuzzFeed News spoke with Maria Steiner, a teacher who taught French and Spanish at Yorktown High School from 1976 to 1980. Reached at her home in Ponte Verdra Beach, Florida, Thursday night, Steiner recalled Hastert as a dedicated wrestling coach who gave his teaching responsibilities less than his full attention.
“He was just the kind of teacher that would drive me crazy,” she said. “He would show movies in his class while he worked on wrestling stuff. He was kind of a slacker teacher.”
But, Steiner added, Hastert “was big in wrestling and that was big in Yorkville, Illinois.”
Hastert’s assistant wrestling coach, Anthony Houle, described as “straight arrow.”
“He was a straight arrow, nothing was hidden,” Houle told BuzzFeed News. “It was a small town, if you farted it was going to be big news.”
Sources: U.S. Attorney agreed to withhold details of Hastert’s alleged “misconduct” in indictment
WASHINGTON — U.S. Attorney Zachary T. Fardon agreed to withhold details of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s alleged “prior misconduct” against an unidentified individual as part of an indictment against the Illinois Republican, two sources familiar with the case told BuzzFeed News.
Fardon announced the indictment — which charges that Hastert illegally evaded reporting transfers of large sums of money and of lying to the FBI — Thursday afternoon. Although the indictment says Hastert agreed to pay “Individual A” $3.5 million” in order to compensate for and conceal “prior misconduct” it does not include details of the alleged misconduct nor the identity of Individual A.
Fardon’s spokeswoman, Kimberly Nerheim, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
According to sources familiar with the case, Fardon had originally been prepared to move forward with a much more explicit indictment of Hastert, who prior to serving in Congress was a high school teacher and wrestling coach for more than 15 years in Yorkville, Illinois.
But Fardon’s office ultimately agreed to limit the amount of information in the indictment, according to these sources, in part because of a request from Hastert’s attorneys.
Make sure to order lots of popcorn. This is going to be fun.
If you take payoffs to keep silent about sexual misconduct toward you, is that kind of like prostitution after the fact?
But why isn't it the blackmailer they are going after?
A witness...................
My 1st thought was this is extortion/blackmail he should just say OK it was in 75 and just like Bill and Hill in 75 ,”What difference does it make?”
Throw the book at him, but let’s be honest, this is every weekend at the Kennedy’s.
Just as he was a slacker Speaker.................
Hastert need to become a Democrat. Then he could become president and be adored by the press.
He’d fit right in................
Wait a minute.. Why is the media focusing on his sexual preferences? I mean, are they HOMOPHOBIC or something? Where are the protesters showing their support for Hastert’s sexual freedom?
Not defending or condoning Hastert, but why should a blackmailer have their name withheld?
A pansexual is a panpervert who is going to panhell in a panbasket unless they repent!
Denny always gave me the creeps.
The kind of creeps where I thought to myself, “Thank God he is only running Congress, and not a troop of Boy Scouts.”
Agree completely: I dunno how much old Denny is worth, but that's a chunk of change. I have figured that we're talking about something in the range between "unknown illicit love child" and "serial serial killer" for those dollars.
Maybe he wasn’t a blackmailer. Maybe it was a voluntary thing...............
*Secret serial killer (typo)
And since when does a Defendant’s Attorney get to have input into the language and detail of an Indictment?
WTF?
"Hastert’s ability to make such large cash payments probably came from his career as a K Street lobbyist. He entered Congress in 1987 with a net worth of no more than $270,000 and then exited worth somewhere between $4 million and $17 million, according to congressional disclosure documents."
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