Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert has been indicted on charges of money structuring and lying to the FBI. The indictment was returned in February and announced today. The story is here. Essentially, the allegation is that Hastert paid hush money, in cash, to an unnamed individual to keep that person from disclosing "past misconduct." He withdrew the cash in amounts designed to avoid federal bank reporting requirements.
Hastert is entitled to the full presumption of innocence. Whether he is actually innocent, I have no idea. My experience is that federal grand juries do not return indictments on whim.
The reason I mention this case now is to rebut two arguments I frequently see. One is that the money structuring and false statements statutes are just sprawling overkill, a tool of power-mad prosecutors, and have nothing to do with behavior an ordinary person would understand to be wrong. The second is that non-violent crime simply isn't all that serious, and that punishing it with imprisonment is just a waste of taxpayer money.
If the allegations of the indictment turn out to be true, it calls both arguments into question. If a man who wields the enormous power of the Speaker of the House built his career on years of concealment, deceit and payoff's, punishing that -- and punishing it with at least some incarceration -- may or may not be harsh. But it is not a waste of money.
Bill, from an administration that declined to prosecute Spitzer and Corzine, all prosecutions are suspect. Personally, and as much as I detest Hastert (the Prairie Parkway--that bastard got to pay capital gains taxes on a sure deal that he used his position to enhance while I got to pay ordinary income tax), I would not vote to convict.
This Administration has lost all moral authority when it comes to alleged crimes like this. All of it.
In fact, given the retention of Darryl Foster as an attorney at DOJ, they've pretty much lost all right to prosecute anyone other than the seriously violent.
I hate the bank reporting laws.
Although I am sure there are reams of case law permitting it constitutionally, I feel it un-American that the US government has a right to know if I pull out $10,000 from the bank. If the Feds want such requirements for people under investigation for drug trafficking or other criminal enterprises, get a warrant like you would to tap their phone or search a house. However, pulling out $10,000 should not be probable cause to initiate an investigation. It is no more probable cause than my carrying a gun is probable cause to search me as a danger to shoot up a school.
I spend the winters in Hawaii, which does not have a branch of the bank I use on the mainland. So every few days, I'll transfer some money from my mainland bank to the one I use out there.
One time, toward the end of the month, I got a call from my mainland bank telling me that I was getting close to the Rule D limit. I replied that I had no idea what Rule D is. The guy from the bank said that it limits you to six transfers a month, and is required by the feds to combat money laundering.
I think my exact response was, "When did it get to be the business of the federal government, or your business for that matter, how often I move my own money from one account to another?"
There was a moment's pause. The response was, "I couldn't agree more. I don't know what the hell they're doing. Nobody minds his own business anymore. But these are the rules, so I had to call."
In other words, I agree with you, as usual.
The catch is that FBI agents (like other executive branch actors (see, e.g., Barack Obama)) have to follow the law as Congress writes it. Conservatives, me included, have no trouble raking Obama over the coals when he breezily ignores immigration law simply because he would prefer a different immigration law he can't get through Congress.
I suspect the feds have Hastert ice cold. The structuring case is just putting paper in front of the jury, and the lying case is a slam-dunk. I mean, a man of that sophistication is afraid of the banking system??
If I had been the FBI agent, I think I would have said, "Mr. Hastert, I'm going to do you a favor and pretend I never heard that, because we both know it's tripe. So I'll ask again: Why were you dealing in so much cash?"
But for however that may be, it would be a good idea, as you say, for more restraint to be written into the structuring laws. Until that happens, however, the FBI cannot turn a blind eye because of taste. We get enough of that from the President, and it leads to a very bad place.
Agreed, Bill. We do not get to pick and choose the laws we obey nor should the Feds get to choose which laws they enforce (ha ha).
I also agree that Hastert is probably involved in something more nefarious than mere bank reporting.
"I suspect the feds have Hastert ice cold."
That's an expression of power, not justice. Spitzer structured to hide payments for prostitution as a sitting governor. He was given a pass. Jon Corzine stole a billion dollars--another free pass. Where the prosecutor starts playing games with whom to prosecute, none of us are safe, and none of us are obliged to accept their decisions.
Darryl Foster,a DOJ lawyer, stole money from the US Treasury by submitting bogus travel claims. He wasn't fired, and he didn't even have to pay the money back. He almost certainly didn't pay taxes on the embezzled funds. How can an organization with this sort of tolerance for dishonesty prosecute Hastert and have any semblance of moral authority?
Like I said, I loathe corrupt characters like Hastert, but I would vote to acquit in this case.
I don't think what I was saying about Hastert is an expression of either power or justice. It's just an expression of what outcome I think the facts are likely to produce.
It is true that some guilty people escape justice. Sometimes they do this because they're clever and don't get caught. Sometimes because they buy off the prosecutor. Sometimes because the prosecutor doesn't need to be bought, because he has his own qualms (or his own struggles). Sometimes because the system is overloaded. Sometimes because the judge gets bought.
But the fact that some of the guilty escape justice because of flaws, or even corruption, in the system is not a reason to let them all escape in the name of an emulsifying equality.
Were it otherwise, we could never have the death penalty, because some people who had it coming (Zacarious Moussoui or the Green River Killer) were able to wriggle free.
I think the wise choice is to regretfully accept the inevitability of human failing and error, but refuse to let them defeat us in cases where we can do better. We are not going to get to a better justice system by tugging everything down to the lowest common denominator. The job is the opposite: To tug things up. Improvement by definition is not equal to the failures that preceded it, but is what we seek anyway.
Well said, Bill
Thanks. Hope you're having a fine re-union. When you get to my age, the main question you'll have at re-unions is, "I don't look like THAT -- do I?" Your wife will gently look away.