Mother Jones
Former House speaker Dennis Hastert is now under indictment for lying to the FBI and embroiled in a major sex abuse scandal. The allegations of Hastert’s sexual misconduct—and his alleged efforts to cover up his misdeeds by paying off the victim—are shocking on their own. But what’s also so remarkable about the case is that Hastert, who spent 20 years in Congress, got caught in the first place, given how many easy, creative, and legal methods exist for buying someone’s silence without leaving a paper trail.
According to the indictment, Hastert aroused suspicion by making a series of $50,000 cash withdrawals from his bank, which was required to report any cash transaction over $10,000 to the Treasury Department. After the bank questioned Hastert about those withdrawals, he began taking out unusual amounts of cash that were just shy of the $10,000 reporting threshold—a red flag to bankers, who reported him to the feds. The cash was allegedly part of $3.5 million in hush money that Hastert, a onetime high school wrestling coach, had agreed to pay a former student to keep quiet about allegations of sexual abuse. Paying off Individual A—as the recipient of Hastert’s payments was identified in the indictment—would have been perfectly legal had Hastert not violated banking regulations by structuring his withdrawals to conceal their purpose. He then compounded his offense by lying to FBI agents who questioned him about the withdrawals. (The New York Times reported on Saturday that shortly before Hastert allegedly began paying Individual A, he inquired about setting up an annuity that would “generate a substantial” annual payout.)
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Dennis Hastert May Have Chosen the Absolute Worst Way to Buy Someone’s Silence
