Republican Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert has just been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges related to currency rules evasion and lying to the FBI.
In one of the highest-reach federal indictments in history, the DOJ has just charged former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert with cash reporting evasion charges and lying to the FBI. One portion of the indictment states that Hastert agreed to a $3.5 million pay off to one individual, and pay offs to others for “prior bad acts,” according to Buzzfeed’s John Stanton, who first broke the news.
The Department of Justice and the IRS “charged Hastert, 73, with illegally transferring funds in an effort to avoid detection by the IRS, a scheme known as ‘structuring,'” Stanton reports.
Although the indictment specifies neither the “bad acts†nor the victims, sources said they could be from before Hastert, who is now a lobbyist in Washington, entered politics in 1980.
When the FBI interviewed Hastert on December 8, 2014, he was asked whether the purpose of the withdrawals was related to his lack of trust in the banking system, which he confirmed. According to the indictment, Hastert said, “Yeah … I kept the cash. That’s what I’m doing.†The indictment counters that Hastert “then well knew, this statement was false,†because he had agreed to provide the person in question with $3.5 million “to compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct against†the person.
The AP notes each “count of the indictment carries a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.”
Hastert was Speaker of the House from January 1999 to January 2007. Newt Gingrich preceded him, and Nancy Pelosi succeeded him.Â
Rep. Hastert was first elected to Congress in 1986, and retired in November 2007.
The full seven-page indictment is posted at Buzzfeed.
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This is a breaking news and developing story and has been updated.
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Top image by U.S. Navy via Wikimedia
Front page image via Wikimedia
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