CHICAGO (AP) — Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert is scheduled to plead guilty Wednesday in a $3.5 million hush-money case after agreeing to a deal with prosecutors about charges that he violated federal banking laws and lied to the FBI.
The change-of-plea hearing will be the longtime GOP leader’s first court appearance since his arraignment in June, when he pleaded not guilty in the same courtroom in Chicago. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of five years behind bars.
A May 28 indictment accused Hastert of handing as much as $100,000 in cash at a time to someone referred to only as “Individual A” to ensure past misconduct by Hastert against the person never became public.
The Associated Press and other media, citing anonymous sources, have reported that the payments were meant to conceal claims of sexual misconduct decades ago.
A guilty plea would seal the downfall of a man who rose from obscurity in rural Illinois to the nation’s third-highest political office.
Hastert was speaker for eight years — longer than any other Republican. He also parlayed his connections into a lucrative lobbying career after leaving Congress in 2007. That career is almost certainly over.
As a convicted felon, “no congressman will want to meet with him about anything. His influence and power will be gone,” said Dick Simpson, a co-author of “Corrupt Illinois: Patronage, Cronyism, and Criminality.”
Known as a savvy deal maker in Congress, Hastert and his attorneys negotiated the plea deal in recent weeks, averting a trial that could have divulged embarrassing secrets dating back to his days as a high-school wrestling coach.
The recommended sentence will not be made public until Wednesday’s hearing. Observers have speculated that Hastert could get six months to two years behind bars.
Hastert allegedly made 15 withdrawals of $50,000 from 2010 to 2012. It’s what he allegedly did later in 2012 that would make his actions criminal. After learning withdrawals over $10,000 are flagged, he supposedly began taking out smaller increments, eventually withdrawing $952,000 from 2012 to 2014.
The withdrawals stopped after FBI agents questioned Hastert on Dec. 8, 2014, according to the indictment.
___
Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
___
Follow Michael Tarm on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mtarm .
Comment count on this article reflects comments made on Breitbart.com and Facebook. Visit Breitbart's Facebook Page.