Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert Watch: Under Investigation or Not?
ABC News The Blotter: Officials: Hastert “In the Mix” of Congressional Bribery Investigation
Federal officials say the Congressional bribery investigation now includes Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, based on information from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government.
Part of the investigation involves a letter Hastert wrote three years ago, urging the Secretary of the Interior to block a casino on an Indian reservation that would have competed with other tribes.
The other tribes were represented by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff who reportedly has provided details of his dealings with Hastert as part of his plea agreement with the government.
The letter was written shortly after a fund-raiser for Hastert at a restaurant owned by Abramoff. Abramoff and his clients contributed more than $26,000 at the time.
The day Abramoff was indicted, Hastert denied any unlawful connection and said he would donate to charity any campaign contribution he had received from Abramoff and his clients.
A spokesman for Speaker Hastert told ABC News, “We are not aware of this. The Speaker has a long history and a well-documented record of opposing Indian Reservation shopping for casino gaming purposes.”
This week, Hastert has been outspoken in his criticism of the FBI for its raid on the office of another congressman under investigation, Democrat William Jefferson of Louisiana.
“My opinion is that they took the wrong path, Hastert said of the FBI. “They need to back up, and we need to go from there.”
Now, Reuters is reporting the Speaker is NOT under investigation by the Department of Justice/FBI.
Which is it?
Reuters: House Speaker not under investigation: Justice
The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday denied a report that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, is under investigation by the FBI in connection with a corruption probe.
ABC News, citing high level Justice Department sources, said information implicating Hastert had been developed from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government.
But department officials, who asked to not be identified, said the story was not accurate and that Hastert was not under investigation. “The story is wrong. Hastert is not under investigation,” one official said.
Who knows?
Michelle Malkin has WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH HASTERT?
Instapundit also got that e-mail and writes:
Perhaps the bizarre bipartisan reaction to the [Rep. William] Jefferson search — and the lack of cooperation preceding it — stems from the fact that a lot of people in both parties have exposure here. And certainly if the Speaker is under investigation it’s easy to see why the FBI might be reluctant to rely further on the Sergeant at Arms and the Capitol Police.UPDATE: I’ve got an email from the Krista Cole in the House saying that the DOJ denies that Hastert is under investigation. Nothing on the DOJ webpage yet, though.
Brian Ross was the reporter who broke the story last week about the FBI supposedly investigating journalists’ phone records to uncover leaks. Might someone in the bureau have fed him bad info on Hastert to make his reporting look unreliable?
Who knows?
But, Hastert’s position on the Representative Jefferson search is wrong, ill-timed and frankly MORONIC.
Mr. Speaker, you know what they say about people who live in “glass houses.”
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) is seen at the Capitol in Washington May 10, 2006.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s press briefing……
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Bithead
While I can see that argument, web, I tend to doubt that’s what’s driving this. Others, less direcly interested, such as Gingrich have taken up the position that Hastert has done, and they can hardly be considered to be arguing from the same motivation. Which leaves us with them actually arguing from an as-yet undecided constitutional perspective.
In general, it seems to me that the reason that these issues are as yet undecided, is that the conduct of the Congresscritters has never been bad enough to warrant these questions being brought to the front and center, before.
Particularly, the reason the questions have never been forced before is because we’ve not had people like Democrat Jefferson, perviously. Clearly, being caught with cash in the freezer is enough to end most of the arguments about his guilt or innoence in the minds of Americans, thereby requiring action.
One gets the impression that this is not a matter of covering some sort of criminal activity so much as arguing a major, unsettled constitutional question.
Personally, I’m inclined to think the search and subsequent gathering of evdience resulting from that search to be legal, and proper, but I don’t think that Hastert and Gingrich (and others, for large part) arguing otherwise is indcative for anything other than an unfounded constitutional concern.
I mean, the timing of the arguments being posed sucks, but when else would such constitutional questions have come up, previously? Im not ocnvinced their arguments are designed to cover criminality.