Ex-House Speaker Hastert indicted for evading currency reporting requirements

Dennis Hastert
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert was indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday for allegedly avoiding a requirement to report large cash withdrawals from banks and lying to the FBI, Bloomberg reports.

Hastert withdrew $952,000 in cash to give an unidentified person $3.5 million as a payoff for covering up "prior misconduct," U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors alleged. Starting in July 2012, the Illinois Republican allegedly withdrew money from the bank in increments less than $10,000 to avoid banks reporting large transactions, as required by law.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Julie Kliegman

Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.