I wasn't too surprised to hear that J. Dennis Hastert, the longest-serving Republican Speaker of the House, is under a federal indictment. Politicians get in trouble, like athletes and clergymen and the fellow down the block. But now I've read the indictment and--my Lord, what a putz! It's the lack of adult sophistication that is sort of breathtaking.
According to the indictment, Hastert agreed to pay an unnamed person a 7-figure sum to compensate him (or her) for some unspecified behavior, and to keep his misconduct secret. (It sounds a lot like he was blackmailed.) The payments were on an installment plan, which at first caused Hastert to make regular $50,000 withdrawals from accounts he held in various Illinois banks. Since federal law requires banks to track and report withdrawals of more than $10,000, Hastert was eventually interviewed by bank representatives. This was in the spring of 2012, after he had made fifteen $50,000 withdrawals in about two years. The regular, $50,000 withdrawals then ceased. Instead, beginning in July of 2012, he began making more frequent withdrawals of just under $10,000--that is, amounts just below the reporting threshold. Around this time the FBI began investigating. When agents interviewed Hastert, he told them that he didn't trust the banking system and that he made the withdrawals so that his money would be safe. The indictment quotes Hastert's answer to a question about what he used the money for: "Yeah . . . I kept the cash. That's what I'm doing."
To me, it seems odd--or shocking--that someone who served in the House of Representatives for twenty years, eight of those as Speaker, would be ignorant of a well-known federal law related to bank practices. Or maybe he wasn't ignorant of the law but just thought that for some unknown reason it would not result in his unusual financial behavior attracting attention? The real kicker, though, is the way in which, once he had to know he was being watched, he picked up the pace at which he made the withdrawals, but now limited them to amounts that would not require the banks to report. He might just as well have taken out a full page ad in the Chicago Tribune announcing he was up to nothing good. (Structuring withdrawals to avoid the reporting statute is itself a federal crime; so, of course, ls lying to federal agents.)
Hastert has been a Washington lobbyist since retiring from Congress in 2009. It's evidently as lucrative as everyone says it is, for the former high-school teacher and wrestling coach had millions of dollars on deposit in different banks. I wonder whether the federal agents asked him what happened in 2010 to make him lose his confidence in the American banking system. Up until then, he seems to have been reasonably sure that his money was safe.
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