The indictment, which does not describe the misconduct Hastert was allegedly trying to conceal, charges the 73-year-old with one count of evading bank regulations as he withdrew tens of thousands of dollars at a time to make the payments. He is also charged with one count of lying to the FBI about the reason for the unusual bank withdrawals.
Each count of the indictment carries a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
…
Hastert withdrew a total of around $1.7 million in cash from various bank accounts from 2010 to 2014, and then provided it to the person identified in the indictment only as Individual A. Hastert allegedly agreed to pay the person $3.5 million, but never apparently paid that full amount.
Specifically, the indictment reads, the payoffs were to cover up “past misconduct by defendant against Individual A that had occurred years earlier.” That “years earlier” part could be important here. See AP’s story for much more, including the 7-page indictment itself.
I’ll be on the road for a few days as of Friday for some long-scheduled family obligations, so I won’t be able to delve much into this for the moment. However, we covered a number of questions about Hastert and criminality in some detail here as far back as 2006. At the time, many seemed to think such questions were outlandish. Much of our coverage stemmed from allegations made about Hastert by former FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. She had charged, years ago, that Hastert was mixed up with shadowy Turkish interests and even suitcases full of cash, generally speaking. For example, from the 241-page transcript [PDF] her sworn video taped testimony during a 2009 case, Edmonds claimed Hastert was involved in…
While Edmonds offered a number of claims that seemed “outlandish” (to some) at the time, the former House Speaker did, in fact, end up going to work as a lobbyist for Turkey shortly after leaving Congress. (As of this afternoon, the D.C.-based lobbying firm, Dickstein Shapiro has removed him from their website, according to Politico.) And now the former Republican U.S. House Speaker from Illinois has been indicted on charges related to huge payoffs to cover up “prior misconduct” of some sort.
As folks are poking around tonight trying to fill in unexplained details from the indictment, here are a few BRAD BLOG stories from years passed that may prove to be worth looking at again while I’m otherwise “gone” for a few days…
• 2/7/2006: EXCLUSIVE: Sibel Edmonds Rebukes Dennis Hastert Attorney’s Rebuttal to Charges of Bribery – Calls on Hastert to ‘Come Clean’ on $500k in Un-Itemized Campaign Donations, Relationship With Turkish Interest Groups
• 6/2/2008: Sibel Edmonds Case: Dennis Hastert to Join Turkish Lobbying Firm – New Job Seen as Payoff for ‘Services Rendered’…
• 9/2/2009: Sibel Edmonds’ Deposition Disclosures: Congressional Bribery, Blackmail, and Espionage – Breaking down the formerly-gagged FBI whistleblower’s sworn testimony…
I don’t know how the stories linked above may or may not relate to Hastert’s current predicament, but there may prove to be a few details from those allegations that are suddenly meaningful again. Edmonds has been proven to be right in the past on a number of other claims that seemed “outlandish” at the time…
Best in-depth explanation of this bombshell of a breaking story that i’ve been able to find!….all of the news outlets (‘outlet’; Merriam Webster; a compaction of outhouse and toilet, as in ‘news outlet’) are echoing the same three sentences of teleprompter, explaining nothing….talk about tip of the iceberg!….the fuckface hails from 25 miles away from me….
Happy trails, Bradster, enjoy a little down time!….we’ll behave ourselves, no need to turn the car around….
Couldn’t have said it better ChicagoMel.
What, you mean they couldn’t turn whatever this treasonous crime was into a vacation at taxpayers expense?
Sorry, but when you leave the door open like this, I can’t help but speculate. I’ve never heard of anything like this before. We’re probably never going to be told what this slug did.
What am I saying? I’m sure the Republicans will demand that the public be told what Hastert was up to.
All the media is going to be talking about is Hastert and Turkey,Hastert and Turkey until we’re sick of hearing about it.
Right?
People need to read Edmonds’s recent novel The Last Gladio. A character in the novel, a Majority Whip in the House whose name I do not recall (it isn’t Haster), is pretty obviously meant to be Hastert. He is blackmailed into taking stands in the House that the CIA wants after he is discovered in flagrante in an Oriental country with a teenage girl. If memory serves, the girl ends up dead.
Sent the link for this article to Edmonds and posted it in a reply at boiling frogs post.
Who could it be, the person extorting $3.5M who has known him most of his life?
Media is mentioning his old job as a teacher/coach, but none question how the retired Speaker of the House could AFFORD to just withdraw $3.5 Million from multiple bank accounts??
And I actually felt sorry for Hastert, who was buying up land from Chicago area farmers, only for Republithug Gov. Bruce Rauner to bury forever the Illiana Expressway from Indiana.
When he disappeared so quickly after Sibel Edmond’s revelations about him, you knew there were very real bombshells being hidden.
It should be quite interesting to see the convolutions to ignore though, maybe Martians will land smack dab in the middle of carl rove gop ville.
This morning the media was telling us Hastert was being publicly indicted, but they wouldn’t tell us why. That was one of the strangest things I’ve ever heard.
Now this story pops up the same day.
Something smells fishy to me.
Another family values guy going down in flames. Simply google Republican sex offenders and you will be reading for a very long time. They preach and vote one way and then get caught with their you know what where it should not have been. Then they go on Fox and complain it’s just those mean old liberals picking on them.
Spseaking of criminals, Judge Mark Fuller will resign. http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/2015/05/29/us-district-judge-mark-fuller-will-resign/28178951/
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/05/30/creepy-hastert-call/
Judith Miller’s “trial and error” approach to journalism!
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2015/05/19/judith-millers-trial-and-error-approach-to-journalism/
One note about the Sibel Edmonds transcript: It does occasionally transcribe inaccurately, usually on items that are minor but occasionally in rather egregious ways. In one case the video shows her answering “no” and the transcript writes her answer as “yes.” So when quoting the transcript it’s best to compare with video first. Kudos to Brad for making both video and transcript available.
On its surface the Hastert indictment has nothing to do with the allegations by Sibel Edmonds, which are of bribery related acts on behalf of Turkish representatives and/or corporate operatives.
The current indictment strongly implies that it relates to an extortion action apparently by a former student of Hastert’s, or former person Hastert coached, prior to taking public office, while he was a teacher and coach in Yorkville Illinois. The extortion apparently began in 2010, after Hastert left public office.
However. The Edmonds deposition details how Turkish interests actively researched sexual habits of persons in public office for use in extortion.
Hastert and others were never prosecuted for the Sibel Edmonds allegations. I don’t know what the statute of limitations was on those, and John Ashcroft was A.G. at that time. There is little chance that Ashcroft would have imploded a political grenade against his own party.
The current indictment, though unrelated, provides a second bite at the apple. Kinda reminds me of how O.J. Simpson got nailed for kidnapping while trying to regain his football trophy, after avoiding conviction on murder. Hastert perhaps skips past statute of limitations on bribery but gets nailed on a structuring charge. (Structuring is a federal crime involving breaking up cash transactions with a bank in order to evade bank reporting requirements used to catch money launderers).
Certainly very interesting and “to be continued.” Good reporting, Brad, as always.
Yeah, Bev Harris, The person who first got me going on this election fraud nightmare, all those years ago.
Thanks a lot. 🙂
But, seriously, thanks a lot! I wish I had a smidgen of your drive and commitment.