Photo By Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department has charged former House Speaker Dennis Hastert with lying to FBI agents and trying to hide financial transactions intended to keep prior misconduct secret, prosecutors alleged Thursday.
The 73-year-old Hastert, a top Republican on Capitol Hill before he left Congress in 2007, agreed five years ago to pay an unidentified person $3.5 million “to compensate for and conceal” prior “misconduct against” that person, according to prosecutors.
Over the next four years, Hastert withdrew about $1.7 million in cash from various bank accounts and provided that money to the unidentified person, according to the Justice Department.
Starting in July 2012, Hastert allegedly structured those cash withdrawals in such a way that it would prevent banks from having to report the transactions. Under federal law, banks are required to report cash transactions over $10,000. Hastert allegedly withdrew $952,000 in increments of under that $10,000 limit.
When the FBI questioned Hastert in December 2014 about the transactions, he allegedly told the FBI that he was keeping the cash for himself, prosecutors said.
A grand jury indicted Hastert with one count of structuring currency transactions to evade currency transaction reports and one count of making a false statement to the FBI.
Hastert, of Plano, Illinois, will be arraigned in the coming days.
If convicted on both counts, he faces as many as 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.
The Justice Department insisted that, like all defendants, Hastert is “presumed innocent and is entitled to a fair trial.”
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