CHICAGO (AP) – A newly unveiled indictment against former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert accuses the Republican of agreeing to pay $3.5 million in hush money to keep a person from the town where he was a longtime schoolteacher silent about “prior misconduct.”
But it offers few hints about a central question: What was the alleged wrongdoing?
The concise federal grand jury indictment handed down Thursday accuses Hastert of agreeing to pay the money to a person identified in the document only as “Individual A,” to “compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct against” that person.
It notes that Hastert was a high school teacher and coach from 1965 to 1981 in suburban Yorkville, west of Chicago. It goes on to say Individual A has been a resident of Yorkville and has known Hastert for most of Individual A’s life, but it does not describe their relationship.
Legal experts say the fact that federal prosecutors noted Hastert’s tenure in Yorkville in the indictment’s first few sentences strongly suggests some connection between the allegations and that time and place.