{"id":7503,"date":"2006-05-24T20:46:18","date_gmt":"2006-05-25T00:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7503"},"modified":"2006-05-24T20:46:18","modified_gmt":"2006-05-25T00:46:18","slug":"is-speaker-hastert-in-the-mix-of-a-bribery-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/is-speaker-hastert-in-the-mix-of-a-bribery-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Speaker Hastert ‘in the mix’ of a bribery investigation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

[tag]ABC News[\/tag]’ [tag]Brian Ross[\/tag] has<\/a> what may be a blockbuster scoop. There are, however, some lingering questions.<\/p>\n

The [tag]Speaker of the House[\/tag] of Representatives, [tag]Dennis Hastert[\/tag], is [tag]under investigation[\/tag] by the [tag]FBI[\/tag], which is seeking to determine his role in an ongoing public [tag]corruption[\/tag] probe into members of Congress, ABC News has learned from senior U.S. law enforcement officials.<\/p>\n

Federal officials say the information implicating Hastert was developed from convicted [tag]lobbyists[\/tag] who are now cooperating with the government.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are several points to consider. First, not only does Hastert’s office deny this, the [tag]Justice Department[\/tag] is formally denying it too. A Justice Department official told Reuters<\/a>: “The story is wrong. Hastert is not under [tag]investigation[\/tag].”<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Brian Ross’ report cites word from “senior U.S. law enforcement [tag]officials[\/tag]<\/em>,” as in plural. Ross is a pretty solid reporter and his report suggests more than one source.<\/p>\n

One thing that’s bugging me, though, is that [tag]ABC[\/tag] News reported this on their blog, but as of now, there’s no mention of it on ABC News’ regular news website<\/a>. If the network had a blockbuster news scoop, that no other outlet seems to have, why not put it on ABCNews.com? It seems odd.<\/p>\n

Having said that, Hastert has been the subject of speculation for quite a while. Think Progress has a helpful backgrounder<\/a> with information on the questions that have been raised to date about Hastert, [tag]Abramoff[\/tag], and the [tag]Coushatta[\/tag] campaign.<\/p>\n

If true, the notion of a sitting House Speaker facing a federal corruption investigation would not only be stunning, it would seriously shake the political world. Needless to say, stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[tag]ABC News[\/tag]’ [tag]Brian Ross[\/tag] has what may be a blockbuster scoop. There are, however, some lingering questions. The [tag]Speaker of the House[\/tag] of Representatives, [tag]Dennis Hastert[\/tag], is [tag]under investigation[\/tag] by the [tag]FBI[\/tag], which is seeking to determine his role in an ongoing public [tag]corruption[\/tag] probe into members of Congress, ABC News has learned from senior […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}