Posted on 05/28/2015 3:45:18 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Federal officials have indicted former House Speaker Dennis Hastert for lying to the FBI about $3.5 million he agreed to pay to an undisclosed subject to "cover up past misconduct."
The indictment was unsealed in the District Court of Northern Illinois on Thursday. The Justice Department alleges that Hastert made large withdrawals after agreeing to pay the money.
The indictment does not explain precisely what the "past misconduct" is, but instead details at length various withdrawals and financial transactions he made with the unidentified subject. The payments totaling about $1.7 million occurred over a period of years beginning in 2010 and ending in 2014.
"During the 2010 meetings and subsequent discussions, Hastert agreed to provide Individual A $3.5 million in order to compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct against Individual A," according to the indictment.
Hastert served as House speaker from 1999 until 2006, when Democrats retook the House. Before serving in Congress he was a high school teacher and coach in Yorkville, Illinois.
Hastert presided over a series of scandals during his time as speaker, including the resignation of former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley in 2006, and ascended to the speakership over former Rep. Bob Livingston in 1999, who was the subject of a scandal.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Hastert was doing “structuring”, i.e., the federal criminal offense of splitting up bank deposits so as to keep them under a threshold such as $10,000 above which banks have to report transactions to the government.
Structuring is unlawful whether or not it occurs in conjunction with any other legal offense, as opposed to being motivated by, say, a desire to keep a low profile in general or a sentiment that the government already keeps tabs on too many innocent activities.
Nor is there any requirement that the person be aware that there is a law banning structuring; someone who gets wind that transactions over $10,000 are reportable, and decides “What’s up with that? I’ll just make $9,000 deposits”), has broken the Bank Secrecy Act.
The federal government instructs banks to report suspicious patterns of sub-threshold deposits, and not to warn customers that it is doing so.
It's his money. If he wants to give it to somebody, that's his business.
why do I seem to think history would have changed for the positive if Livingston had become speaker?
even if the change was something not particularly earth shaking.
Hastert is a big amnesty shill. He should have focussed on other issues.
Hastert was the one who made a point of defending William Jefferson, D-LA, when he was indicted. Right then I knew he was a fellow crook.
Reads more like he was hiding an agreement to pay hush money. At his end, the money was coming OUT, not going in.
Withdrawing $3 million and giving it to someone and then lying about it is not a smear... Instead of lying he should have just refused to answer the question. His goose is cooked.
Like Elliot Spitzer did to procure prostitutes over state lines, another federal crime. Of course Spitzer, in the “interests” of justice, wasn’t prosecuted for his crimes.
RE: Looks like they’re going after him for “structuring” with no underlying crime, just a smear job.
The news said he did structuring to pay someone to “cover up a misconduct”.
What the misconduct is was not specified ( not yet ).
Hastert should have formed something like the Clinton Foundation.
He’s an amateur compared to Bill and Hillary ( and even compared to Al Sharpton ).
What was the misconduct? Did Hastert pull a Clinton?
I don’t know how much of a difference it would’ve made.
Hastert WAS corrupt. We in IL know that. Terrible choice for Speaker.
But he was withdrawing his own already-taxed (presumably) money, not depositing it.
But he was withdrawing his own already-taxed (presumably) money, not depositing it.
Try for Joliet, Coach. They have killer peppersteak.
When will we read those headlines?
Hastert ended up as Speaker the same way Anthony Kennedy ended up as SC Justice. First guy (Newt/Bork) was killed by a thousand cuts, second guy (Livingston/Douglas Ginsberg) had something in his past that blew up in their faces, third guy (Hastert/Anthony Kennedy) was a non-offensive vanilla choice that nobody could object to.
Personally I haven't read about the indictment, but given that is the Obama administration going after Hastert, either they came up with another bogus "charge" to silent a Republican who was going to make them look bad, OR Hastert is a legitimately guilty scumbag who finally got caught up by the feds once he was out of the public spotlight.
Hastert's a combiner, Obama is slime, and this is Illinois, so either scenario is possible.
I knew the guy was slime when he defended William Jefferson, D-LA. I called it way back in 2006.
Hastert tells President Bush FBI raid was unconstitutional
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