One down, many, many more to go… Neocons that is. Hopefully they get the rest of them.
The video: (Via the AP, which has all sort of updates to this story.)
(video removed, it was an autoplay video and there was no code to change to prevent the autoplay for starting, so I removed it)
The story:
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has indicted former House Speaker Dennis Hastert on reporting evasion charges and lying to the FBI as part of an effort to conceal paying off the victim of “prior bad acts.”In an indictment handed down in the District Court of Northern Illinois, the Department of Justice and IRS charged Hastert, 73, with illegally transferring funds in an effort to avoid detection by the IRS, a scheme known as “structuring.”In the indictment, Hastert is accused of agreeing to pay one individual $3.5 million.Although the indictment does not specify the “bad acts,” sources said they could be from before Hastert, who is now a lobbyist in Washington, entered politics in 1980. The indictment does, however, claim that Hastert agreed to make the payments “[d]uring … 2010 meetings and subsequent discussions.” In at least one of those meetings, according to the indictment, Hastert and the individual “discussed past misconduct by [Hastert against the individual] that had occurred years earlier.”According to the indictment, the FBI began, in 2013, investigating cash withdrawals allegedly made by Hastert “as possible structuring of currency transactions to evade the reporting requirements.”When the FBI interviewed Hastert on Dec. 8, 2014, he was asked whether the purpose of the withdrawals was related to his lack of trust in the banking system, which he confirmed. According to the indictment, Hastert said, “Yeah … I kept the cash. That’s what I’m doing.” The indictment counters that Hastert “then well knew, this statement was false,” because he had agreed to provide the individual with $3.5 million “to compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct against” the person.
Source: Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert Indicted On Federal Charges – BuzzFeed News
Could not have happened to a better guy. This was one of Bush 43’s cronies in the House. He basically allowed the Republicans to spend like drunken sailors under Bush’s term. That was until the Democrats tossed him and the neocons out. Furthermore, this turkey basically was responsible for giving Bush a blank check for Iraq; and it is believed that he was larging responsible for pressuring the House into approving Bush authorization for war.
For this, he deserves what he gets. May he spend the rest of his miserable life in prison.
Update: This has become a major story. here are all the blogs writing about it, via Memeorandum: The Moderate Voice, U.S. News, The Huffington Post, Scared Monkeys,Mashable, The Federalist, Politico, DownWithTyranny!, Associated Press, Towleroad News #gay, Outside the Beltway, The Week, Mediaite, White House Dossier, Hot Air,Rush Limbaugh, Raw Story, Talking Points Memo, The Intercept, PoliticusUSA,CANNONFIRE, CNN, The National Memo, Shakesville, NBC News, Daily Kos, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Washington Post, Balloon Juice, Box Turtle Bulletin, Taylor Marsh, NPR,Clayton Cramer, BuzzFeed and Chicago Tribune, Mediaite, Boing Boing, The Daily Banter, The Bob and Chez Show,The Atlantic, Washington Post and Patterico’s Pontifications, NOLA River, Mother Jones, CNN, Daily Kos, Bloomberg View and NPR, Bloomberg Business, Politico, Wheaton College Home, The Hill,Washington Monthly, Los Angeles Times, Talking Points Memo, Washington Post, The Week, Box Turtle Bulletin, OpenSecrets.org, Scared Monkeys, Daily Mail, The National Memo, PoliticusUSA, CANNONFIRE, Liberaland, Daily Kos,Mediaite, The Gateway Pundit and Outside the Beltway, ABC News, The Last Refuge, U.S. News, Firedoglake, Washington Monthly and Politico, The Huffington Post, TVNewser and Associated Press, Washington Post, The Huffington Post, NBC News, Talking Points Memo, msnbc.com and RT, Washington Post, New York Times and Booman Tribune, Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos and Reuters, Talking Points Memo, Washington Post, ThinkProgress andChicago
