I was blown away yesterday when the longest
serving Republican Speaker of the House, Denny Hastert was indicted by federal
officials for agreeing to pay a victim $3.5 million to keep quiet about
misconduct while a teacher and wresting coach, before he entered Congress. Of course, my first thought was that he
sexually abused a student. Well it has
come out that that seems to be the case.
At least one other former student has come forward with a similar story,
although he was not paid. In addition,
when questioned by the FBI about the withdrawals, he lied, which is a felony. While
I submit that Mr. Hastert should be considered innocent until proven guilty,
the evidence against him is telling. He
was paying his victim in $50,000 increments until he raised eyebrows at his
bank, and they reported him for making withdrawals of $10,000 dollars or
more…heck, even I knew that banks were required to do that. While considered by most to be "squeaky
clean", he has been investigated in the past for financial improprieties
with nothing coming of said investigations.
I find it very disheartening that a gaggle of members of
Congress have been found to have committed these types of crimes. These are the people running our country folks. Mark Foley, Republican in the House
representative who was caught sending sexually explicit texts to Congressional
pages, and Larry Craig, the Republican senator from Idaho, who attempted to
solicit sex from an undercover male police officer in a bathroom stall at the
Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport come to mind. Denny Hastert was considered a “good guy”, and
now, people are wondering, “If he couldn’t be trusted, who CAN we trust?” This doesn’t even take into account the other
types of corruption that other members of Congress have committed.
