Fifteen Months
This is what the American people get out of it: Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) has been sentenced to fifteen months in prison for lying to the FBI about payoffs to sex abuse survivors.
Before issuing his sentence, Judge Thomas M. Durkin pressed the former House Speaker on the details of his misconduct, asking Hastert directly if he sexually abused his victims. “Yes,” Hastert said, publicly acknowledging this for the first time. He added, “What I did was wrong and I regret it. They looked to me and I took advantage of them.”
In an additional gut-wrenching detail, one of these victims, Scott Cross, testified today that Hastert molested him when Cross was a teenager. Cross is the younger brother of former Illinois House Republican leader Tom Cross, who looked up to Hastert as a political mentor.
Hastert actually asked Tom Cross for a letter of support as part of his criminal case, despite the fact that Hastert molested his younger brother.
As part of this morning’s proceedings, the judge in the case explained, in reference to Hastert’s political career, “Sometimes actions can obliterate a lifetime of good works.” The judge referred to Hastert three times as a “serial child molester.”
(Benen↱)
The sentence does include a $250,000 fine and sex-offender rehabilitation.
For many, this still seems a petty token. For others, though, it seems far too harsh. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) submitted a letter to the court, asking leniency for Mr. Hastert: "We all have our flaws, but Dennis Hastert has very few", DeLay wrote. "He doesn't deserve what he is going through."
Jason Meisner↱ reported last week that the court had received sixty letters supporting Hastert; Judge Durkin refused to consider the letters if they were not included in the public record, and "Nearly 20 writers did not wan their letters made public, or had requested their letters be 'withdrawn' from consideration". Mr. DeLay, perhaps, should have considered a similar action.
Mr. Hastert might not deserve what he is going through, but that is because he's getting better than he deserves. Well, by morals. By law, this is about all there is left for the people. And, you know, we ought not be surprised Republicans still think that's too much.
Benen summarizes a particular political implication:
As we discussed a few weeks ago, from 1998 to 2006, House Republicans suffered one ugly scandal after another. Democrats used the “culture of corruption” label to great effect because it was true―from Gingrich to Livingston, DeLay to Cunningham, Ney to Foley, the GOP’s House majority just couldn’t stay out of trouble.
But no matter how many scandals surrounded House Republicans, GOP officials pointed to the humble Speaker from Illinois as the squeaky clean leader, elevated to the post from relative obscurity because of his above-the-fray reputation.
This is actually an important point even beyond the mere politics of Democrat and Republican; the guy is a predatory sex offender, though as Tom DeLay said, "We all have our flaws, but Dennis Hastert has very few". Republicans apparently still
need Mr. Hastert to be some manner of wholesome symbol.
Still, the obvious question persists. There was, for instance, a postal franking scandal. That was a disaster. Really. A
genuinely morbidly stupid spectacle↱ that spanned decades. It's a scandal that includes the phrase "stamps for cash". In the end, questions of permissiveness about whether or not taxpayers should pay for certain mail sent by public officials, ranging from Christmas cards to campaign materials, eventually destroyed careers. But, you know, it's easy enough to see. Once it starts with Christmas cards, it's really easy to put that tax-funded postage stamp or, eventually, frank, on the piece. And, sure, you know, we all have our flaws. Fifty-five thousand dollars worth of postage? Yeah, that was pretty stupid.
Still, though, as flaws go, it really was a product of the times. It seems nearly emblematic that it could go so far and someone not recognize something amiss about it. You know, like expense reports and tax deductions. It's sketchy enough to turn that lunch into a business meeting, but I'm hard-pressed to find an occasion when writing off a trip to the strip club seems a good idea. Nonetheless, the pathway to Rostenkowski's stupidity can be found within the proposition of reducing direct overhead; if you could put that cost elsewhere, why would you not?
And now we know the answer to that question.
But, really, serial sex predation?
Perhaps I'm missing something, but that isn't something we generally write off as, "We all have our flaws".
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Notes:
Benen, Steve. "After admitting sex crimes, former House Speaker headed to prison". msnbc. 27 April 2016. msnbc.com. 27 April 2016. http://on.msnbc.com/1YTVMXe
Congressional Quarterly. "Post Office Probe Hints at Larger Scandal". CQ Almanac 1992, 48th ed. 1993. Library.CQPress.com. 27 April 2016. http://bit.ly/26v0UXq
Meisner, Jason. "More than 40 letters in support of Hastert made public before sentencing". Chicago Tribune. 22 April 2016. ChicagoTribune.com. 27 April 2016. http://trib.in/236XyFK
