House Speaker John A. Boehner said Friday he was “shocked” to learn of the accusations against his predecessor, former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, who was indicted by a grand jury this week on charges of hiding currency and lying to FBI officials about it.
The indictment said he was in the process of paying $3.5 million in hush money to a man he’d known from his days as a high school teacher and coach. News reports Friday said the man was a former student whom Mr. Hastert had allegedly sexually abused.
“The Denny I served with worked hard on behalf of his constituents and the country,” Mr. Boehner said in a statement Friday, a day after the indictment was made public. “I’m shocked and saddened to learn of these reports.”
Mr. Hastert was the longest-serving Republican speaker in history, holding the top office from 2009, when he ascended after a bitter and embarrassing succession struggle within the GOP, until 2007, when he relinquished it to Rep. Nancy Pelosi when Democrats took control of the chamber.
The new charges against Mr. Hastert are stunning in particular because of a scandal he oversaw in 2006, when then-Rep. Mark Foley was revealed to have been sending sexually suggestive messages to two teenage boys who had been part of the congressional page program.
Mr. Hastert was deemed to have moved too slowly to address the accusations against Mr. Foley, and Democrats used the scandal as an attack in the 2006 elections, arguing Mr. Hastert and his fellow Republicans had overseen an era of corruption and scandal. Democrats won control of the House in that election for the first time since 1995, costing Mr. Hastert the speaker’s gavel.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.