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.
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.
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A FADING GLORY
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on December 4, 2015 at 12:05 amSaving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg’s 1998 World War II epic, opens with a scene of an American flag snapping in the wind.
Except that the vivid red, white and blue we’ve come to expect in Old Glory have been washed out, leaving only black-and-white stripes.
And then the movie opens–not during World War II but the present day.
It makes you wonder: Did Spielberg know something–such as that the United States, for all its military power, has become a pale shadow of its former glory?
Consider the following:
May, 30, 1945, marked the first Memorial Day after World War II ended in Europe.
On that day, the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery became the site of just such a ceremony. The cemetery lies near the modern Italian town of Nettuno.
In 1945, it held about 20,000 graves. Most were soldiers who died in Sicily, at Salerno, or at Anzio.
One of the speakers at the ceremony was Lieutenant General Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., the U.S. Fifth Army Commander.
Lieutenant General Lucian K. Truscott, Jr.
Unlike many other generals, Truscott had shared in the dangers of combat, often pouring over maps on the hood of his jeep with company commanders as bullets or shells zipped close by.
When it came his turn to speak, Truscott moved to the podium–and then did something truly unexpected.
Looking at the assembled visitors–which included a number of Congressmen–Truscott turned his back on the living to face the graves of his fellow soldiers.
Among Truscott’s audience was Bill Mauldin, the famous cartoonist for the Army newspaper, Stars and Stripes. Mauldin had created Willie and Joe, the unshaved, slovenly-looking “dogfaces” who came to symbolize the GI.
Bill Mauldin and “Willie and Joe,” the characters he made famous
It is from Mauldin that we have the fullest account of Truscott’s speech that day.
“He apologized to the dead men for their presence there. He said that everybody tells leaders that it is not their fault that men get killed in war, but that every leader knows in his heart that this is not altogether true.
“He said he hoped anybody here through any mistake of his would forgive him, but he realized that was asking a hell of a lot under the circumstances….
“Truscott said he would not speak of the ‘glorious’ dead because he didn’t see much glory in getting killed in your late teens or early twenties.
“He promised that if in the future he ran into anybody, especially old men, who thought death in battle was glorious, he would straighten them out. He said he thought it was the least he could do.
“It was the most moving gesture I ever saw,” said Mauldin.
Then Truscott walked away, without acknowledging his audience.
Fast forward 61 years–to March 24, 2004.
At a White House Correspondents dinner in Washington, D.C., President George W. Bush joked publicly about the absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq.
One year earlier, he had invaded Iraq on the premise that its dictator, Saddam Hussein, possessed WMDs he intended to use against the United States.
To Bush, the non-existent WMDs were nothing more than the butt of a joke that night.
While an overhead projector displayed photos of a puzzled-looking Bush searching around the Oval Office, Bush recited a comedy routine.
“Those weapons of mass destruction have gotta be somewhere,” Bush laughed, while a photo showed him poking around the corners in the Oval Office.
“Nope-–no weapons over there! Maybe they’re under here,” he said, as a photo showed him looking under a desk.
In a scene that could have occurred under the Roman emperor Nero, an assembly of wealthy, pampered men and women–-the elite of America’s media and political classes–-laughed heartily during Bush’s performance.
Only later did the criticism come, from Democrats and Iraqi war veterans–especially those veterans who had lost comrades or suffered grievous wounds to protect America from non-existent WMDs.
Click here: Bush laughs at no WMD in Iraq – YouTube
Then fast forward another 11 years–to February 27, 2015.
The Republican Party’s leading presidential contenders for 2016 gathered at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland.
Although each candidate tried to stake his own claim to the Oval Office, all of them agreed on two points:
First, President Barack Obama had been dangerously timid in his conduct of foreign policy.
Second, they would pursue aggressive military action in the Middle East.
“Our position needs to be to re-engage with a strong military and a strong presence,” said Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida.
And Bush added that he would consider sending ground forces to fight ISIS.
Scott Walker, the current governor of Florida, equated opposing labor unions to terrorists, and said: “If I could take on 100,000 protesters (in Wisconsin), I can do the same across the world.”
Neither Bush nor Walker saw fit to enter the ranks of the military he wishes to plunge into further combat.
And Bush and Walker are typical of those who make up the United States Congress:
Of those members elected or re-elected to the House and Senate in November, 2014, 97–less than 18%–have served in the U.S. military.
Small wonder that, for many people, Old Glory has taken on a darker, washed-out appearance.
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