Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert will plead guilty to lying to the FBI.

That announcement was made on October 15 by the office of the United States Attorney [Federal prosecutor] for Chicago.

Hastert, who was the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1999 to 2007, had been indicted on May 28 for violating federal banking laws and lying to the FBI.

He had tried to conceal $3.5 million in hush-money payments over several years to a man who was blackmailing him.

Dennis Hastert

The source of the blackmail: A homosexual—and possibly coerced—relationship with an underage student while Hastert was a teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School, in Yorkville, Illinois–long before Hastert entered Congress in 1981.

Hastert wasn’t indicted for having had a sexual relationship with an underage student. The statute of limitations had long ago run out on that offense.

He was indicted for trying to evade federal banking laws and lying to the FBI.

According to the indictment, the FBI began investigating the cash withdrawals in 2013.

The Bureau wanted to know if Hastert was using the cash for criminal purposes or if he was the victim of a criminal extortion.

When questioned by the FBI, Hastert said he was storing cash because he didn’t feel safe with the banking system: “Yeah, I kept the cash. That’s what I’m doing.”

Thus, irony: By giving in to blackmail, Hastert:

• Lost $3.5 million;
• Unintentionally engineered his arrest and indictment; and
• Ensured that his darkest secret would be revealed.

There is a lesson to be learned here—one that longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover well understood: Giving in to blackmail only empowers the blackmailer even more.

As William C. Sullivan, the onetime director of the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division, revealed after Hoover’s death in 1972:

“The moment [Hoover] would get something on a senator, he’d send one of the errand boys up and advise the senator that ‘we’re in the course of an investigation, and we by chance happened to come up with this data on your daughter.

“‘But we wanted you to know this. We realize you’d want to know it.’ Well, Jesus, what does that tell the senator? From that time on, the senator’s right in his pocket.”

Of course, hypocrites who lead double-lives are always vulnerable to blackmail. Enter Dennis Hastert.

During his tenure as House Speaker, Hastert pushed the anti-homosexual Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) through the House. He also proposed a Constitutional amendment to annul same-sex marriages in states that allowed them.

The only effective way of handling blackmail was demonstrated by Arthur Wellesley, known to history as the Duke of Wellington.

The Duke of Wellington

In 1815, he had defeated Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo, ending France’s longstanding threat to England.  With that victory came the honors of a grateful nation.

Then, in December, 1824, Wellington found himself the target of blackmail by Joseph Stockdale, a pornographer and scandal-monger.

“My Lord Duke,” Stockdale write in a letter, “In Harriette Wilson’s memoirs, which I am about to publish, are various anecdotes of Your Grace which it would be most desirable to withhold….

“I have stopped the Press for the moment, but as the publication will take place next week, little delay can necessarily take place.”

Wilson was a famous London courtesan past her prime, then living in exile in Paris.  She was asking Wellington to pay money to be left out of her memoirs.

From Wellington came the now-famous reply: “Publish and be damned!”

Wilson’s memoirs appeared in installments, naming half the British aristocracy and scandalizing London society.

And, true to her threat, she named Wellington as one of her lovers—and a not very satisfying one at that.

Wellington was a national hero, husband and father. Even so, his reputation did not suffer, and he went on to become prime minister.

Click here: Rear Window: When Wellington said publish and be damned: The Field Marshal and the Scarlet Woman – Voices

Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the House, might now wish he had followed the example of the Duke of Wellington.

His reputation might have been trashed, but he wouldn’t have faced prosecution.

By choosing to give in to blackmail, Hastert destroyed his reputation and left himself open to prosecution for violating Federal currency laws.

Once he lied to FBI agents about the reason for his withdrawals, his choices came down to two: Confront the charges in open court, or plead guilty and avoid a trial.

By pleading guilty, Hastert avoids having to answer why he was willing to pay out $3.5 in blackmail monies.

But his reputation remains twice trashed—once under the stigma of sexual misconduct, and again under the stigma of a criminal conviction.