How Hastert went from poor school teacher to multimillionaire while serving a public official:
In March 1999, soon after Hastert's elevation to the speakership, the
Washington Post, in a front-page story, reported that Hastert "has begun offering industry lobbyists the kind of deal they like: private audiences where, for a price, they can voice their views on what kind of agenda the
106th Congress should pursue."
[10] Hastert's style and extensive fundraising led
Common Cause to critique the "pay-to-play system" in Congress.
[10]
In 2000, Hastert announced he would support an
Armenian Genocide resolution. Analysts noted that at the time there was a tight congressional race in California, in which the large
Armenian community might be important in favor of the Republican incumbent. The resolution, vehemently opposed by Turkey, had passed the Human Rights Subcommittee of the House and the International Relations Committee but Hastert, although first supporting it, withdrew the resolution on the eve of the full House vote. He explained this by saying that he had received a letter from
Bill Clinton asking him to withdraw it, because it would harm U.S. interests. Even though there is no evidence that a payment was made, an official at the Turkish Consulate is said to have claimed in one recording, that was translated by
Sibel Edmonds, that the price for Hastert to withdraw the Armenian Genocide resolution would have been at least $500,000.
[59][60]
A September 2005 article in
Vanity Fair revealed that during her work, former FBI translator
Sibel Edmonds had heard Turkish wiretap targets boast of covert relations with Hastert. The article states, "the targets reportedly discussed giving Hastert tens of thousands of dollars in surreptitious payments in exchange for political favors and information."
[59] A spokesman for Hastert later denied the claims, relating them to the
Jennifer Aniston-
Brad Pitt breakup.
[62] Following his congressional career, Hastert received a $35,000 per month contract lobbying on behalf of Turkey.
[63]
In a December 2006, the
House Ethics Committee determined that Hastert and other congressional leaders were "willfully ignorant" in responding to early warnings of the
Mark Foley congressional page scandal, but did not violate any House rules.
[64][65] In a committee statement,
Kirk Fordham, who was Foley's chief of staff until 2005, said that he had alerted
Scott B. Palmer, Hastert's chief of staff, to Foley's inappropriate advances toward congressional pages in 2002 or 2003, asking congressional leadership to intervene.
[65] Then-House Majority Leader
John Boehner and
National Republican Congressional Committee chair
Thomas M. Reynolds stated that they told Hastert about Foley's conduct in spring 2005.
[65] A Hastert spokesman stated that "what Kirk Fordham said did not happen."
[65] Hastert also stated that he could not recall conversations with Boehner and Reynolds, and that he did not learn of Foley's conduct until late September 2006, when the affair became public.
[65]
In 2006, Hastert became embroiled in controversy over his championing of a $207-million federal
earmark (inserted in the
2005 omnibus highway bill) for the
Prairie Parkway, a proposed expressway running through his district.
[66][67][68] The
Sunlight Foundation accused Hastert of failing to disclose that the construction of the highway would benefit a land investment that Hastert and his wife made in nearby land in 2004 and 2005. Hastert received five-eighths of the proceeds of the sale of the land, turning a $1.8 million profit in under two years.
[67][68][69] Hastert's
ownership interest in the tract was not a
public record because the land was held by a
blind land trust, Little Rock Trust No. 225.
[66] There were three partners in the trust: Hastert, Thomas Klatt, and Dallas Ingemunson. However, public documents only named Ingemunson, who was the Kendall County Republican Party chairman and Hastert's personal attorney and longtime friend.
[66][69] Hastert denied any wrongdoing.
[67] In October 2006,
Norman Ornstein and Scott Lilly wrote that the Prairie Parkway affair was "worse than FoleyGate" and called for the Speaker's resignation.
[70]
In 2012, after Hastert had departed from Congress, the highway project was killed after federal regulators retracted the 2008 approval of an
environmental impact statement for the project and agreed to an
Illinois Department of Transportation request to redirect the funds for other projects.
[71] Environmentalists, who opposed the project, celebrated the cancellation of the project.
[71] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Hastert#Controversies_during_term_as_Speaker
