Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1999 through 2007, was indicted today on charges of structuring bank withdrawals to avoid mandatory bank reporting and lying about the purpose of the withdrawals to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Hastert is alleged to have made the cash withdrawals to "compensate for and conceal" some past transgression against an unnamed individual which ended with Hastert and the other party reaching a privately negotiated settlement. Prior to his career in politics Hastert was a teacher at Yorkville High School in Illinois where he additionally coached wrestling and football.

The indictment spends a lot of language concerned about some sort of "misconduct" which they insinuate may have been criminal, and yet the only actual criminal charges in the indictment are for trying to evade financial surveillance and not telling the FBI what he was actually doing with the cash. Yet for as much as they insinuate about the seriousness of the misconduct former speaker Hastert was still able to reach a private settlement of some form with the alleged victim of the misconduct. In the indictment prosecutors allege the settlement was for three and a half million dollars which Hastert would pay in instalments.

Since leaving the House of Representatives Hastert had been working as a lobbyist in Washington, DC. The indictment mentions Hastert having used Old Second Bank, People’s State Bank, Castle Bank and Chase Bank for his cash withdrawals.

The full text of the indictment is below: