The former Republican lawmaker was charged yesterday of attempting to structure nearly a million dollars in cash withdrawals to avoid reporting them to the IRS, as well as lying to the FBI when questioned about the nature of the withdrawals. According to the indictment, he had agreed to pay an unknown individual $3.5 million “in order to compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct,” and that the person, named as “Individual A,” was someone from Yorkville, Il., who’d known Hastert for “most of Individual A’s life.”
Observers quickly noted that the official indictment went out of its way to identify
And then this video popped up from Hastert’s Nov. 13, 2014 appearance on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, in which a man identifying himself as “Bruce” asked Hastert: “Do you remember me from Yorkville?” He then cackled and hung up, leaving Hastert visibly uncomfortable. (The indictment said that Individual A had started meeting Hastert in 2010, and Hastert started making payments to that individual shortly thereafter.)
BuzzFeed also reported that at the request of Hastert’s lawyers, the U.S. Attorney’s office agreed to withhold the “explicit” details from the indictment that concerned why Hastert agreed to pay Individual A $3.5 million in hush money. But at this point, we can’t stop people from jumping to conclusions.
Watch below via C-SPAN:
[Image via screenshot]
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