Once second in line to the Presidency, a guilty plea for Hastert would mean he would become the first ex-Speaker to be convicted of a crime since the Civil War, according to Congressional officials.
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“Hastert was motivated to reach a settlement because he was concerned about potentially embarrassing facts coming out”, said John Marshall law professor Hugh Mundy. As he finished, the judge immediately asked: “Did you know that what you were doing was wrong?”
As you know, most news organizations including this one have reported since then that the payments involved sexual abuse of a student while Hastert was a teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School prior to entering politics. In the plea agreement he admitted to paying $1.7 million in cash to an individual he had known for decades, in order to buy that person’s silence regarding past misconduct and to compensate for the misconduct.
It’s also unclear if any of the details of the alleged sexual misconduct will emerge in the trial. The same year, the J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government and Public Policy is founded at Wheaton College.
Hastert, 73, pleaded guilty Wednesday to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a hush-money scheme.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed on a sentencing range of up to 6 months in prison, but the judge noted the final decision on Hastert’s sentence is up to him.
Due to the plea-bargain deal, details regarding the reasons behind the payments and who the individual that received them will likely never be revealed.
Mr. Hastert told the judge why he had structured bank withdrawals in an attempt to avoid detection. Hastert was the longest-serving Republican speaker in U.S. House history, holding the position from 1999 to 2006.
I’m not even particularly bothered that Hastert faces no more than six months in prison under federal sentencing guidelines for his conviction.
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Wednesday Burge said that while she’s glad Hastert was forced to at least partially answer for his alleged actions, the proposed sentencing was “sad and unfair”. I kept the cash. In it, he acknowledged the unnamed person and that the two “discussed past misconduct” by Hastert against that person, who is only referred to as “Individual A”.
