Former GOP House Leader Hastert To Plead Guilty In Suspected Sweetheart Deal

Lawyers for former GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert announced plans Oct. 15 for his guilty plea later this month to charges arising from $3.5 million payments via illegal methods to an unknown man, suspected by some critics to have been a pedophile victim who obtained payments akin to blackmail.

Meanwhile, skeptics suggested that federal prosecutors and defense attorneys reached a deal whereby the former Illinois congressman (shown in a file photo) would not have to disclose even at sentencing any details of crime, thereby providing him unusual protection compared to other defendants.

The Chicago Tribune reported the plea deal in Ex-House Speaker Dennis Hastert reaches plea deal, to admit wrongdoing.

The alternative media Corbett Report reported deeper scandal in The REAL Hastert Scandal: Pedophilia, Drug Money and Blackmail, including in a video below, introduced as follows: “A series of revelations from FBI whistleblowers reveal that this story is just the tip of a very seedy iceberg, one that implicates Hastert, his top aide, other Congress members and government officials in a criminal network involved in sexual intrigue, foreign espionage, blackmail, and drug money.”
 

This editor and the Justice Integrity Project have followed the story closely for nearly a decade. We provided an early tip in 2006 to investigative reporter Wayne Madsen, who followed up with extensive research resulting in his publication that fall of a four-part series alleging that then-speaker Hastert was a closeted gay who orchestrated a cover-up scapegoating his gay pedophile colleague Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) while Hastert hid his own past from his “family values” constituency in a conservative House district southwest of Chicago extending into rural regions.

Madsen, a former Navy intelligence officer and the author of 12 books, wrote in his 2006 series that Hastert’s political career began when he joined the Illinois legislature after being suspected of pedophile behavior while a high school wrestling coach in the community of Yorkville.

Madsen’s story was essentially ignored until a federal indictment last spring accused Hastert of making unreported bank withdrawals in illegal amounts for unspecified purposes. The Justice Integrity Project summed up those developments June 8 in Media Protected Hastert, Then Pounced Like Hyena Pack On Scapegoat.