Dennis Hastert's indictment resurrects Foley scandal
Rep. Dennis Hastert, right, meets with fellow Republicans, from left, Reps. Jerry Weller, Thomas Davis and Mark Foley in his office in Washington on Dec. 20, 1998. (Pete Souza, Chicago Tribune)
By Katherine Skiba
Chicago Tribune
contact the reporter Crime U.S. Congress John Boehner Judy Biggert Mark Foley John Shimkus
Dennis Hastert's actions in the Mark Foley scandal gain new attention
Allegations that Dennis Hastert paid hush money to cover up years-old sexual misconduct have put a new light on criticism that, as House speaker, he failed to take action against a congressman who was making improper advances toward underage male pages.
The scandal involving former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley of Florida led to a 2006 House Ethics Committee investigation that found Hastert and many others were "willfully ignorant" in responding to repeated warnings that Foley had behaved improperly with pages and former pages.
Congressional expert Norm Ornstein said Hastert's past actions could be viewed through a new lens in light of the explosive allegations he now faces.
Sister: Brother had sexual relationship with Dennis Hastert while in high school
Sister: Brother had sexual relationship with Dennis Hastert while in high school
"The fact that the speaker of the House did nothing when there were multiple attempts to intervene (with Foley) is in itself appalling, without any future allegations about Hastert's own past behavior," said Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
"If you're getting warnings about potentially inappropriate conduct by a member of the House toward the pages, and you don't at minimum take that member aside and say, 'Stay the hell away from those pages,' and you do nothing — even not knowing at the time about Hastert's own issues — I find it just appalling."
Hastert, 73, is to appear in federal court in Chicago on Tuesday on charges that he lied to the FBI and improperly structured bank withdrawals of nearly $1 million in cash to evade required reports. The money, according to the federal indictment, was part of an agreement to pay an unidentified individual $3.5 million to compensate for and conceal past misconduct.
Law enforcement sources say the misconduct dates to when Hastert was a teacher and wrestling coach in Yorkville, Ill., before entering Congress.
lRelated Dennis Hastert had multiple sources of income after leaving Congress
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Dennis Hastert had multiple sources of income after leaving Congress
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Hastert was still speaker when the 2006 "sexting" case involving Foley, then 52, exploded into public view. Foley quit Congress on Sept. 29, 2006, on the eve of midterm elections that proved disastrous for Republicans and resulted in Hastert losing his speakership when the new Democratic majority took over in 2007.
By the end of 2006, the House Ethics Committee put out a 200-plus page report indicating that Hastert, his aides and others had failed to take sufficient steps to put a stop to Foley's long-standing overtures to current and former House pages.
Hastert was singled out for not acting on warnings about Foley's emails — cautions delivered separately to him by two GOP officials in spring 2006. That was months before media attention on the sexually charged electronic communications Foley sent to former pages led to Foley's resignation. The warnings came after top Hastert aides were told Foley was behaving inappropriately with male pages, the report said.
Boehner 'shocked and dismayed' by Hastert reports
At his weekly news conference Thursday, Speaker John A. Boehner said he was “shocked and dismayed” by the recent allegations against former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert. (RollCall)
One of the officials who told investigators he briefed Hastert about the emails in June 2006 was current House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, who was then House majority leader. The other congressman who said he talked to Hastert about Foley was Rep. Tom Reynolds of New York, who at the time was leading the National Republican Campaign Committee. Reynolds left Congress in 2009.
Boehner told the committee that when he spoke to Hastert about Foley's emails to a former page, Hastert said the matter "has been taken care of."
But Hastert told the committee he didn't recall the conversations in spring 2006 with Boehner or Reynolds about the Foley emails.
The committee, in a 200-page report issued in December 2006, found the "weight of the evidence" supported the conclusion that Hastert was told, at least in passing, by both Boehner and Reynolds about Foley's worrisome emails.
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@common sense-ican -Speculation? He paid MILLIONS to someone just because......?
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"In all, a pattern of conduct was exhibited among many individuals to remain willfully ignorant of the potential consequences" of Foley's conduct with pages, the report said.
Hastert was one of eight lawmakers who testified about the Foley case before the committee, which heard from 43 other witnesses.
For almost a decade, Foley had been considered a "nuisance" and a "ticking time bomb" because of his incessant attention to male pages, the Ethics Committee report said. A number of witnesses testified they had been told that in one case Foley, possibly intoxicated, appeared at the page dorm after their curfew and was turned away, it said.
Two other Illinoisans were tied to the Foley case.
Rep. John Shimkus of Collinsville chaired the House Page Board, comprising three lawmakers, the House clerk and the House sergeant-at-arms, the report said. The board's role was to ensure the program was consistent with the "efficient functioning of the House and the welfare of pages," the report said.
Tribune coverage: Dennis Hastert indicted
Tribune coverage: Dennis Hastert indicted
Rep. Judy Biggert, a suburban Chicago lawmaker who left office in 2013, sat on the Ethics Committee's four-member investigative subcommittee, which conducted the probe into how long-standing warnings about Foley had been handled.
Neither Biggert nor Shimkus replied to Tribune requests for comment this week. Nor did Hastert's Washington lawyer.
Foley, after leaving Congress, reportedly underwent alcoholism treatment, the report said.
As an ex-member, he was no longer under the committee's jurisdiction, and his lawyer said he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right if made to testify, the report said.
In the end, no one was sanctioned for violating House rules in the still-notorious case. Hastert was pleased and said so in a statement: "I am glad the committee made clear that there was no violation of any House rules by any Member or staff."
But the scandal had lasting implications. University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato said a string of GOP scandals involving Foley and Reps. Randall "Duke" Cunningham of California and Bob Ney of Ohio contributed to the Republicans' loss of House control.
"It's pretty clear that Republicans didn't react to the information about Foley as they were given it," Sabato said. "Exactly how much of it was Hastert and how much of it was others is lost to the mists of time. But clearly they didn't do what they should have done."
One of the keys to the job of House speaker is keeping the party in the majority, Sabato said.
"I'm sure they (Republicans) didn't think it (the Foley case) would blow up the way it did, but retrospectively they had the obligation to do something, but I don't know what the something was," Sabato said. "I don't know if they had enough on Foley to force him into resigning earlier."
The House page program was started during the 20th Congress in 1827 and abolished in 2011. Pages had to be at least 16 years old and sponsored by a lawmaker. When the program was abolished, House leaders said the Internet and email had left the pages with scant work to do. The Senate still has a page program.
The House page program has been the focus of other past scandals.
Reps. Dan Crane, R-Ill., and Gerry Studds, D-Mass., were censured in 1983 for sexual relationships with pages. Crane had been involved with a 17-year-old girl and lost the 1984 election. Studds, who had been involved with a 17-year-old boy, did not run for re-election in 1996 and died in 2006.
