The Hastert Surprise

Tiassa

Tiassa

Let us not launch the boat ...
Valued Senior Member
Wait, What?

Honestly, this was not the lede I was expecting:

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert paid a man to conceal sexual misconduct while the man was a student at the high school where Hastert taught, a federal law enforcement official told NBC News on Friday.

(Williams, McClam and O'Connor)​

Seriously?

Really?

Can I go with, "More on this, later, when I have a clue what the hell just happened"?
____________________

Notes:

Williams, Pete, Erin McClam and Tracy O'Connor. "Dennis Hastert Paid to Hide Sexual Misconduct With Student: Official". NBC News. 29 May 2015. NBCNews.com. 29 May 2015. http://nbcnews.to/1KDCFNu
 
The crazy thing is how he attempted to pay him in cash. He agreed to pay him $3.5 million but was going to do it a bit at a time (due to banking regs).

Probably nothing would have happened if he had just denied the allegation since it's been over 40 years and it's just the other person's word vs Hastert's.

You have to wonder why the other person waited so long especially since the damage would have been so much greater (to Hastert) when he was Speaker of the House.

Now, he isn't even an elected official.

By agreeing to pay $3.5 million Hastert has given much more credence to the charges. Had he done nothing, nothing would have happened.

In addition, he made it much more likely that the feds would get involved by trying to do the whole thing in cash.

He could have just wired the funds and said the other guy was a political consultant.

This was an unexpected story for sure.

Mod note - I removed the formatting since the bloody latex buggered up your post. -Kitt
 
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Seattle said:
The crazy thing is how he attempted to pay him in cash. He agreed to pay him $3.5 million but was going to do it a bit at a time (due to banking regs).

Probably nothing would have happened if he had just denied the allegation since it's been over 40 years and it's just the other person's word vs Hastert's.

You have to wonder why the other person waited so long especially since the damage would have been so much greater (to Hastert) when he was Speaker of the House.

Now, he isn't even an elected official.

By agreeing to pay $3.5 million Hastert has given much more credence to the charges. Had he done nothing, nothing would have happened.

In addition, he made it much more likely that the feds would get involved by trying to do the whole thing in cash.

He could have just wired the funds and said the other guy was a political consultant.

This was an unexpected story for sure.
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There are many legal ways Hastert could have structured these payments. So it is a bit puzzling. I suspect whatever it is Hastert is trying to keep secret, it is pretty shameful, like having sex with one of his students. And given Hastert is a Republican, being homosexual and married as he was would have been exponentially shameful. This is certainly shocking. This is the guy who gave us the Hastert Rule. Hastert also received $40,000 a month for 5 years from the taxpayers of this country to staff an office all while Hastert was employed as a lobbyist and receiving free travel from his clients. Hastert is corruption incarnate and too representative of the Republican Party he led.
 
Joepistole said:
Hastert is corruption incarnate and too representative of the Republican Party he led.
Click to expand...

Indeed, this was sort of a headline surprise. When I first saw the headlines about the bust for $3.5m in illegal payouts, like many people I figured this had to do with how he was cleaning up his own ethics messes from his Speakership, probably something to do with a pay-to-play lobbying scandal.

That this is what it's about?

I'm still not past the, "Holy shit!" part, speak nothing of accommodation and assimilation. Presently I have no idea what to do with this information except stare at the screen and say, "Really?"

See, the thing about sex abusers is that there really isn't any room to feel sorry for them. Yet the part I'm fascinated with is the how and why of Hastert's decision-making process. There are aspects of this that will overlap with less dangerous and disgraceful episodes of infamy, like being a famous anti-gay preacher snorting meth out of your gay hooker's ass, or staking your medical reputation to found a propaganda society posing behind such credentials only to get caught traveling Europe with a rentboy.

But I have no idea how this works with Dennis Hastert. When it was Larry Craig (airport men's room), Bob Allen (soliciting in a public park men's room), Richard Curtis (robbed by his male prostitute) ... Randwolf↗ offered a list last year, and as I noted↗ at the time, this is what the closet does to people.

Mr. Hastert? This time the fallen crashed in the wasteland beyond the pale. We don't have room to feel sorry for him, but, really, the one valuable thing he can give us in this whole mess is some chance to understand how this happened. This is what we need to know; it will be a tale of personal anguish, to be certain. This is also exactly what we won't get.

Or maybe it will turn out that he's always been a predatory bastard, and this is ... just the tip.

So, yes, the fact that it is Dennis Hastert in the dock of public scrutiny for this reason is something of a mindfuck. And for now, all I can say is, "Holy shit! How did this happen?"

(That, and I have the wrong song stuck in my head, now. Never mind.)
 
(sigh)

​

"Or maybe it will turn out that he's always been a predatory bastard ...."

―Tiassa​

Update:

Damn it.

A source familiar with the investigation told BuzzFeed News that U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon considered but did not pursue additional charges against former Speaker Dennis Hastert, which would have included a reference to an Individual B, one of potentially several alleged victims of “prior misdeeds.”

(Stanton, et al.)​

Yeah, I missed this detail; it's stamped twenty-six hours ago.
____________________

Notes:

Stanton, John, et al. "Hastert Reportedly Sexually Abused Man While He Was A High School Wrestling Coach". BuzzFeed. 28 May 2015. BuzzFeed.com. 30 May 2015. http://bzfd.it/1PVjMch
 
This is an interesting case indeed. I've already mentioned the poor decision making regarding either just ignoring the "claim" or paying but in a more traditional way (not cash).

It's interesting because he has been in public life for a long time and nothing like this has ever come out and from people who were around him as a coach/teacher there was no indication either.

The timing of the payments is odd as well as you would think this would have all come about when he was Speaker and when the pressure to pay would have been much greater.

Maybe he is bisexual and the "urges" were controllable as opposed to a homosexual trying to suppress all urges.

It also re enforces my belief that we have too many laws in the U.S. and that we are insistent on criminalizing everything.

A college professor having sex with a student is not illegal. A high school teacher doing the same thing with a student one year away from college is.

The later is statutory rape even if it was consensual. If Hastert wasn't well known or didn't have money this would be a non-issue as well. Maybe he sincerely apologizes to the victim and that's it.

I don't know the facts of this case and of course if it wasn't consensual then it's a much different matter or if it's a long string of abusing a trust relationship.

There are too many situations however when something goes on all the time and life goes on and then someone else does it and it's the end of the world for them.

It's the same with "upper class" indiscretion with measured penalties and "lower class" indiscretion that results in long prison sentences.

The biggest problem (IMO) with this situation is that a former high school teacher after serving in the House has $3.5 million to spare to pay someone off.

Going into and coming out of politics shouldn't be a surefire ticket to riches. No laws are generally broken doing this because there are few laws regulating this.

It's the same reason that cops who shoot people aren't convicted. They can't be because the laws as written were designed with them in mind.
 
FHFA Director Recalls Unseemly Rumor

Some news today as former Congressman Mel Watt (D-NC12), currently the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, answered talk that he had once been approached about Dennis Hastert and allegations of sexual abuse. Steve Benen↱ of msnbc explains:

But the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein reported this afternoon that “at least one member of Congress was likely aware” of the allegations surrounding Hastert.

Relatively early on during Hastert’s speakership, Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) was approached with news about the alleged abuse, according to a source with knowledge of the conversation that took place with Watt. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the matter.​

According to the source, the person who approached Watt was an intermediary for the family of the abuse victim and knew the North Carolina congressman informally.​

The Rachel Maddow Show received a comment from Watt, who now directs the Federal Housing Finance Agency, this afternoon:

“Over 15 years ago I heard an unseemly rumor from someone who, contrary to what has been reported, was not an intermediary or advocate for the alleged victim’s family. It would not be the first nor last time that I, as a Member of Congress, would hear rumors or innuendoes about colleagues. I had no direct knowledge of any abuse by former Speaker Hastert and, therefore, took no action.”​

This is an interesting development simply because the indictment and its implications caught the Beltway entirely by surprise.

But we should also mark this one, because part of the thing is that apparently nobody had any idea Speaker Hastert had this sort of dark side, and for now we have no reason to doubt Director Watt, but American political history in general suggests a significant chance we might just have heard our first excuse for why nobody did anything about something.

I loathe how that last sentence of the response statement is formulated: "I had no direct knowledge of any abuse by former Speaker Hastert and, therefore, took no action."

That, however, is just me. It's not specifically discomforting as lacking reassurance.

And, come on. This is Congress. Flip a coin. Read the cards. Is this about to get embarrassingly, horrifyingly, ineffably damagingly stupid?

I will go with, "I believe the Director and will attribute my failure to feel assured to something about his cheap bureaucratic language."

Right.

____________________

Notes:

Benen, Steve. "Former lawmaker heard 'unseemly' Hastert rumor 15 years ago". msnbc. 2 June 2015. msnbc.com. 2 June 2015. http://on.msnbc.com/1KLadcr
 
What, exactly, was the "sexual misconduct"
are we talking blowjobs? anal penetration? fondling?
Anyone have a clue?
 
Because the infractions are different and that is significant and relevant.

for all I know the infraction could have been almost anything.
As an attorney, my son, Cedric, represented a man convicted of a sexual offence for urinating in public.
That was from a plea bargain which led to many more "infractions".
And needed backtracking (almost impossible) to re-address the current "infraction"
 
Sculptor said:
Because the infractions are different and that is significant and relevant.

for all I know the infraction could have been almost anything.
As an attorney, my son, Cedric, represented a man convicted of a sexual offence for urinating in public.
That was from a plea bargain which led to many more "infractions".
And needed backtracking (almost impossible) to re-address the current "infraction"
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Okay, I have a question for you: Would it be too much to ask that you should limit your skepticism to reality?

Whatever it is that motivates this line of questioning, consider that silence was worth three and a half million dollars to Mr. Hastert.

So, you know, whatever skepticism you wish to pretend in order to explain your inquiry would probably serve you best if it remained within the bounds of reality.

Seriously, that's a great exchange:

"Why do you think that is significant or relevant?"

―Because it is!​

And, you know, really? Public urination? That's what you come up with?

Worth three and a half million dollars?

Okay, fine. So some kid caught him pissing in the parking lot at school, and that's worth three and a half million dollars. Remind me again how this man became Speaker of the House?

Hello?

Okay, first of all, why is the difference significant or relevant to you?

And, secondly, when dodging that question, could you maybe put a little more effort into it than public urination?
 
sculptor said:
Because the infractions are different and that is significant and relevant.
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I had to laugh at that one :) The infractions are different but how is that significant and relevant? You end up sounding like a voyeur :)

"He they have sex standing up or laying down and who was on top" :)
 
Seattle said:
I had to laugh at that one :) The infractions are different but how is that significant and relevant? You end up sounding like a voyeur :)

"He they have sex standing up or laying down and who was on top" :)
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It has to do with a personal preference for eschewing obfuscation.
It seems that "sexual misconduct" is intentionally obfuscatory.
And, therefore, not to my liking.
 
sculptor said:
It has to do with a personal preference for eschewing obfuscation.
It seems that "sexual misconduct" is intentionally obfuscatory.
And, therefore, not to my liking.
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The only one I see obfuscating here is you my friend. If Mr. Hastert had any kind of sex with his student it would have been a huge breech of trust, not to mention a felony. The specific sex act is immaterial, unless of course you have a penchant for ephebophilia. As has been previously pointed out to you, Hastert is alleged to have paid 3.5 million dollars to keep his secret. People don't pay out that kind of money to keep something secret without good cause.
 
I do not dispute that. Any sex with a minor is just unacceptable.

Hiding the most descriptive words for the act behind the veil of obfuscation does no one any good.
 
Sculptor said:
Hiding the most descriptive words for the act behind the veil of obfuscation does no one any good.
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Who do you think is hiding words? Are you even following the story, or just making shit up as this discussion goes along?
 
Hate to say this but Hastert may not have broken any laws regarding his contacts with students.

From 1965 to 1981, Hastert was a high school teacher and coach. I dont know when Illinois made its consent law 17 but thats what it is now. Wait, found something...

In 1920 it was 16. In 1885 it was 10...(ick)

http://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/60840.pdf

The Move To Criminalize
Illinois may have been the first state to criminalize teacher-student affairs, making it a felony in 1988 for teachers to have sex with students of any age. ..

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2012/0...o-bar-teachers-from-having-sex-with-students/

But maybe homosexual acts were still against the law. Do you really want to go there?
 
milkweed said:
Hate to say this but Hastert may not have broken any laws regarding his contacts with students.

From 1965 to 1981, Hastert was a high school teacher and coach. I dont know when Illinois made its consent law 17 but thats what it is now. Wait, found something...

In 1920 it was 16. In 1885 it was 10...(ick)

http://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/60840.pdf

The Move To Criminalize
Illinois may have been the first state to criminalize teacher-student affairs, making it a felony in 1988 for teachers to have sex with students of any age. ..

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2012/0...o-bar-teachers-from-having-sex-with-students/

But maybe homosexual acts were still against the law. Do you really want to go there?
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I didn't see that coming. :) Who knew Jerry Falwell's party of Christian morality (i.e. Republican Party) is now down not only with extramarital sex but with sexual relationships with minors and more specifically teacher-student sex with minors...who knew?

I wonder when Republicans will incorporate this new position into their party platform or perhaps it is already there and I have just overlooked it. One more thing, we don't know how old Mr. Hastert's alleged victim was at the time. If he or she was in high school he or she could have been anywhere from 13 to 18 years old. Whatever the age, Mr. Hastert felt it was worth 3.5 million dollars to cover-up. And if Mr. Hastert did have sex with one of his students, it was a huge betrayal of trust. As a parent, I would be outraged, Christianity or not. Maybe you Republicans should ask the Catholic Church how well pedophilia worked out for the church before you sanction this kind of behavior?
 
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He didn't actually pay $3.5 million. It was only something like $1.7 million. Maybe he can a discount for paying in cash ::)
 
Seattle said:
He didn't actually pay $3.5 million. It was only something like $1.7 million. Maybe he can a discount for paying in cash ::)
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I don't know where you get the 1.7 million. It's been reported in the press as 3.5 million.

"CHICAGO — Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert will appear in federal court next week on charges that he evaded banking regulations as part of a plan to pay $3.5 million to a person to keep quiet about past misconduct. A person familiar with the allegations told The Associated Press that the payments were to conceal claims that the Illinois Republican sexually molested someone decades ago." - Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/06/03/us/ap-us-dennis-hastert-news-guide.html?_r=0
 
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