Discussion for article #237189
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There are lots of things that âwe still donât knowâ beyond whatâs listed here. His time in Congress, for starters. Why so much money, for another.
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How about where did olâ Coach get enough money to pay 3.5 mil?
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If he doesnât want everything to come out, heâll cop a plea and then disappear again.
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Since he left Congress he has been employed as a very highly-paid lobbyist in DC. Some estimate Hastertâs total net worth as somewhere around $12 million. As the former Speaker, he is probably at the top of the food chain and being paid a couple million a year.
Maybe Hastert doesnât want to talk about that, either. It looks like Hastertâs piggy bank had a great amount of growth after he got into Washington politics. Ever hear of a high school teacher being able to afford paying out $3,500,000 out of their retirement fund?
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Understood, however he started meeting with âIndividual Aâ in 2010. He left office in 2007. He must have acquired a pile of cash before his lobbying career.
Before becoming a lobbyist, he amassed a sizable fortune in real estate. Given that developers et al. are very involved in financing pols, he probably had ample opportunity to make money in real estate. Remember âWhitewaterâ or more recently that Peoria guyâs good fortune in property appreciation? Denny probably very well. His distinct included the fast growing exurban counties of Chicago where it would have been easy to take advantage of the rapidly appreciating properties,e sp. if one knew where highway dollars might be spent.
Yeah, well, as Buckguy says here. Hastert made some big $$ in real estate speculation and sales well before he left Congress. I remember reading something about a housing and community development made out of farmlands where an Interstate road was about to be built. It was all perfectly legal, but kind of sketchy as he had some insider information on the area to be developed as a highway.
And that he did. Look up the Prairie Parkway land he made a bundle on.
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The whole thing seems weirdâwhy now?. It is becoming apparent that the media had opportunities to look at this long ago but didnât, so they are complicit. In some ways, it would be more wise to extort now given that Hastert has been able to make buckets of money as a lobbyist and, perhaps that was the major motivation since all this began after he left office. Hastert was a classic bland hackâif heâd been willing retire on his fat butt in obscurity and enjoy his real estate profits, this probably wouldnât have happened.Given that Hastert has done things like favors for Mayor Daley in Chicago as a lobbyist, heâs created an opportunity for the extortionist to use this as a way to also point up Hastertâs many hypocrisies.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/30/how-public-servant-hastert-got-his-riches.html
From the article; where the money flow all began:
âHastert used the earmarking process to turn his investment in some Illinois farmland into a profit of 140 percent when a federal highway project just happened to make its way through those very fields. Indeed, it was this instance of a completely legal form of insider trading that helped prompt Congress to end earmarks.â
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There is never just one victim in this kind of crime.
Never.
We already know of one moreâwho died of AIDS in 1885, so he canât contribute to the documentation now.
But there will be othersâprobably lots of them.
Whether they come forward is another matter entirely.
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Maybe Individual A finally got therapy and confronted Hastert and told him that he was going to tell the world to help him come to terms with what happened to him (which no doubt had a very large impact on his life) and Hastert is the one who suggested the payments in return for silence, which, I think, takes it out of any possible prosecution for extortion. My take is as plausible as any other, so little information do we have at present.
Also, I read that while he was a teacher Hastert drove a new Porsche every year. Not necessarily a big deal â maybe one of his students was the son of the local dealer, but pretty darned unusual. The only point of which is, there is a lot of information out there we donât know a lot of which is unlikely to made Hastert look better.
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âWhat? Theyâre gonna build a highway on land I just happen to have acquired not long ago? What a strange stroke of luck for meâŚâ
Nonsense, the media has zero fault here. The only thing the media has was one woman claiming Dennis Hastert had sex with her dead brother decades ago. No other source. That merits zero investigation. I could walk into ABC News right now and claim Hillary Clinton had sex with my dead sister in the 1970âs when my sister was 12. I should be shown the exit door if I did that.
Why didnât the kid saying anything when he was dying, or sign an Affidavit? Why didnât the sister go to the police? Why did she wait all that time after he died to even go to the news?
Oh, the story could easily be true, but there was ZERO indication of that at the time. It was hearsay from ONE person, about something she claimed a dead person said, about an event from decades ago.
You know who you blame for this? Dennis Hastert. No one else.
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Unless Mr. A was paying taxes on the money he was getting, he will be identified when indicted for income tax invastion.
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I just donât see Hastert weathering this at 73 years old. I think he will likely suicide rather than stand by as the whole sordid and revolting story plays out.
Her story was confirmed by a friend of her brotherâs who told reporters that the brother told him in the 70s about the relationship with Hastert .
Try again.
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In 2006? Thatâs what the reference is to. According to this article and everything else I read, the friend told reporters this recently, not back in 2006.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/exclusive-alleged-dennis-hastert-sex-abuse-victim-named/story?id=31530828
A friend of Steveâs, who did not want to be identified, told NBC News Friday that, like Jolene, Steve also told him in 1974 that he had his first sexual encounter with Hastert when Steve was a student.
This too:
The media angle relates to time: ABC News knew of Burdgeâs allegations starting in 2006, but couldnât air a report on them because Burdge wouldnât speaking on the record at the time. âShe contacted us and other members of the news media about nine years ago off the record,â said ABC Newsâs Brian Ross on this morningâs âGood Morning America.â
If you have a link showing this friend confirmed this with ABC back then, by all means post it.
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