Chicago, IL – Former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert was indicted on Thursday on federal charges including making false statements to the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago said.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
The Illinois Republican, who left office in 2007, was charged with structuring the withdrawal of $952,000 in cash in order to evade the requirement that banks report cash transactions over $10,000, and lying to the FBI about his withdrawals, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
This new law that criminalizes “structuring” frightens many because it is open to great prosecutorial abuse, and is a charge impossible to disprove. For now, its limited to bank withdrawals, but just wait till it gets expanded to tax law, and the IRS starts performing asset forfeitures based on their assertions that a tax debt was “re-structured” to avoid taxes.
At least there is one thing that both parties agree on. To be cheating greedy (public) self servants
I agree with #1 .
A bit of history: The House Republicans were going after Bill Clinton based on his sexual misconduct. Newt Gingrich, who was leading the charge, was cheating on his wife (with whom he had had an affair during a previous marriage) at that time. When Gingrich resigned as Speaker of the House due to his ethical violations, Bob Livingston became Speaker-elect. He resigned as Speaker-Elect and from Congress because of HIS affair. Livingston’s replacement in Congress was now-Senator Vitter, who had some publicity later on regarding his wearing diapers (not for medical reasons) and visiting prostitutes (that seat is now held by Steve Scalise, the guy who gave a speech to a neo-Nazi white supremacist group). Dennis Hastert became Speaker after Livingston and the stories just hitting the press today are that Hastert was paying the money to a blackmailer to hush up his sexual misconduct with a male (age unknown at this time). Anyone else see a pattern of hypocrisy and impunity here?