Denny Hastert, Speaker of the House, 1999-2007

Denny Hastert, Speaker of the House, 1999-2007 June 3, 2015

Dennis Hastert, the Illinois Republican who served as speaker of the House of Representatives from 1999 through 2007, has been accused of trying to hide the sexual abuse of a male student from when he was a teacher and a high school wrestling coach.

Richard A. Serrano and Katherine Skiba report for The Los Angeles Times:

J. Dennis Hastert stumbled into political power amid a Republican sex scandal in 1998 that unexpectedly elevated the husky Illinoisan to a position just two heartbeats away from the presidency.

He became the longest-serving Republican House speaker in U.S. history, but remained so proud of his days as a small-town high school teacher and wrestling coach that he relished the Capitol Hill nickname “Coach.”

But this week those once-idolized small-town roots caught up with the 73-year-old Hastert, who in recent years has worked behind the scenes as a Washington power broker.

On Friday, federal law enforcement officials said Hastert had paid $1.7 million over the last four years to conceal sexual abuse against a former male student he knew during his days as a teacher in Yorkville, Ill., where Hastert worked until 1981.

Hastert’s alleged misdeeds came to light when he was indicted for lying to the FBI, which was investigating the former congressman due to a history of suspicious bank withdrawals he’d been making since 2010. Apparently, Hastert was withdrawing the cash for hush-money payments to his alleged victim.

HastertCenter
Wheaton College’s J. Dennis Hastert Center has been expeditiously renamed. (From a Chicago Tribune photo by Anne Halston. Click pic for full story.)

That means, of course, that Hastert himself may also be the victim of a crime — extortion by, or on behalf of, his alleged victim or victims. We don’t yet know that for sure, just as we don’t yet know for sure that Hastert is guilty of the allegations against him — thus the reliance on the cautious language of “allegedly” and “accused of.”

But while there’s much that’s uncertain at this point, common sense makes him seem very, very guilty of something. It would be strange for him to pay $1.7 million to someone over a false accusation without him contacting the police or hiring a team of attorneys. If I were a multi-millionaire and someone tried extorting millions of dollars from me over a false accusation, I’d hire a bunch of million-dollar lawyers and clear my name in court — not skulk around clumsily trying to sneak them the hush-money they demanded.

Here’s another part of Serrano and Skiba’s report that I don’t quite understand:

The disclosures followed Thursday’s federal indictment against Hastert on charges of lying to the FBI about the reasons for large cash withdrawals he is accused of making to buy the man’s silence.

“It goes back a long way, back to then,” a second [federal law enforcement] official said. “It has nothing to do with public corruption or a corruption scandal. Or to his time in office.”

Thursday’s indictment described misconduct against a person identified only as “Individual A,” noting that Hastert had known the person “most of Individual A’s life.”

When asked about the nature of the alleged misconduct, the second official said, “It was sex.”

OK, yes, a sex scandal is not the same thing as “public corruption or a corruption scandal.” But when a sex scandal leads to extortion, that distinction goes away. A politician who is willing to pay someone millions of dollars to keep quiet may also be a politician who is willing to vote or deregulate or administer their duties in a way that favors those leveraging their secrets against them. And that is the very definition of public corruption.

The alleged sex or sexual abuse Hastert was paying to keep secret occurred before his time in office. He was keeping that secret throughout all of his years in office. There is no sense in which that secret can be said to have “nothing to do with” his time in office.

It’s certainly possible to be in public office while keeping secrets that one does not wish the public to know without being corrupt. But when they’re the kind of secrets for which one is willing to pay millions in hush-money, then they’re also the kind of secrets that one might be willing to exchange political favors to keep. That’s corruption.

And speaking of corruption, how is it that a former high school teacher and coach, who then spent decades in Congress, amassed the kind of personal fortune that enabled him to agree to pay some $3.5 million to keep his secrets hidden? Hastert, apparently, made his fortune by speculating in real estate — including several deals in which his investment paid off due to congressional action, suggesting there wasn’t really anything speculative about them. After his time in Congress, he went on to a lucrative career as a lobbyist — the revolving door through which corporations are able to write a big thank-you check to former congressmen for their years of faithful service. I don’t see how that has “nothing to do with public corruption or a corruption scandal” either.

Meanwhile at Hastert’s alma mater, the former “J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy” has been quickly renamed the Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy at Wheaton College. Hastert resigned from the advisory board of the center on Friday when the allegations against him became public.

Rough weekend for Wheaton, then — taking down signs, recycling letterhead stationery, and having to issue statements mixing pious platitudes with the kind of thing we usually hear from mob lawyers:

“In light of the charges and allegations that have emerged, the College has re-designated the Center as the Wheaton College Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy at this time,” the college said in a statement on Sunday.

Wheaton has no connection to the recent allegations against Hastert, according to the statement.

“We commit ourselves to pray for all involved, including Speaker Hastert, his family, and those who may have been harmed by any inappropriate behavior, and to continue the work and mission of the Wheaton College Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy,” the statement read.

… “The Center will continue to serve these purposes in conformity with the highest ethical and academic standards of excellence and integrity in conformity with our institution’s identity,” it stated. “The College respects Mr. Hastert’s distinguished public service record and the due process being afforded him pursuant to the charges that have been filed against him.”

Speaking of public corruption … Wheaton’s not-Hastert center is currently directed by former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias,. He was — according to the official story — fired from that post by the Bush administration for incompetence. That official story is suspect, since no examples of that alleged incompetence were ever cited and Iglesias received excellent performance reviews. But that’s still the official story, because it’s more pleasant than the alternative — which is that Iglesias was fired for having too much integrity to play along with pressure from the Bush administration to use bogus claims about “voter fraud” to intimidate and suppress minority voters.

The apparent firing and replacement of several U.S. attorneys for political reasons led to an investigation into possible perjury by members of the Bush administration whose testimony to Congress on the scandal was unsupported and contradictory. But since this potential perjury merely involved suppressing minority votes to rig elections — rather than something of vital national interest, like a blow job — that investigation didn’t go anywhere.

Which brings us back to Dennis Hastert and his place in history, as summed up eloquently by Orin Kerr for The Washington Post:

If I understand the history correctly, in the late 1990s, the president was impeached for lying about a sexual affair by a House of Representatives led by a man who was also then hiding a sexual affair, who was supposed to be replaced by another congressman who stepped down when forced to reveal that he too was having a sexual affair, which led to the election of a new speaker of the House who now has been indicted for lying about payments covering up his sexual contact with a boy.

Yikes.

 


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