Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., was indicted Thursday for lying to the FBI about why he was making huge cash withdrawals, which allegedly were used to pay an unnamed person to keep quiet about “past misconduct” by Hastert, according to the Weekly Standard.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois said Hastert met with “Individual A” in about 2010, and agreed to pay this person $3.5 million “in order to compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct against Individual A.”
“Shortly thereafter, defendant began providing Individual A cash payments,” it said, noting that $1.7 million was paid out over four years. But it said that when asked about these payments, Hastert said he was keeping the cash because he didn’t feel the banking system was safe.
“Yeah…I kept the cash,” he told investigators. The indictment said Hastert knew that statement and others like it were false, a violation of the law.
It also said Hastert purposefully withdrew amounts of cash in order to avoid reporting requirements, another violation of the law.
Hastert was Speaker of the House from 1999-2007.
