{"id":7504,"date":"2006-05-25T09:09:07","date_gmt":"2006-05-25T13:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7504"},"modified":"2006-05-25T09:09:07","modified_gmt":"2006-05-25T13:09:07","slug":"abc-news-isnt-backing-down-on-hastert-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/abc-news-isnt-backing-down-on-hastert-story\/","title":{"rendered":"ABC News isn’t backing down on Hastert story"},"content":{"rendered":"

As posted<\/a> last night, [tag]ABC News[\/tag] reported<\/a> late in the afternoon that House [tag]Speaker[\/tag] [tag]Dennis Hastert[\/tag] is “under [tag]investigation[\/tag] by the [tag]FBI[\/tag], which is seeking to determine his role in an ongoing public corruption probe into members of Congress,” according to “senior U.S. law enforcement officials” who spoke to ABC’s [tag]Brian Ross[\/tag]. The investigation reportedly stems from the Jack [tag]Abramoff[\/tag] probe<\/a>. The Justice Department denied<\/a> the accuracy of the report and Hastert’s office demanded a [tag]retraction[\/tag]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As of now, ABC News is not only sticking to the original report, [tag]Ross[\/tag] is adding to it<\/a>. As of 10:21pm last night:<\/p>\n

Despite a flat denial from the Department of Justice, federal law enforcement sources tonight said ABC News accurately reported that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is “in the mix” in the FBI investigation of [tag]corruption[\/tag] in Congress. […]<\/p>\n

Law enforcement sources told ABC News that convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff has provided information to the FBI about Hastert and a number of other members of Congress that have broadened the scope of the [tag]investigation[\/tag]. Sources would not divulge details of the Abramoff’s information.<\/p>\n

“You guys wrote the story very carefully but they are not reading it very carefully,” a senior official said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to Ross, the law-enforcement sources who leaked word of the investigation said the official denials are a semantics game. Hastert is<\/em> facing a formal probe, they said, but the DoJ denial was meant only to deny that Hastert was a formal “[tag]target[\/tag]” or “[tag]subject[\/tag]” of the investigation. One of the ABC sources said, “Whether they like it or not, members of Congress, including Hastert, are under investigation.”<\/p>\n

Also curious was Hastert’s choice of words<\/a> when asked about the investigation. From last night’s World News Tonight:
\n<\/p>\n

Justice Department officials describe the 64-year old Illinois Republican as “very much in the mix” of the corruption investigation.<\/p>\n

Something the speaker told ABC News he was unaware of.<\/p>\n

Question: You know nothing about it?<\/p>\n

Hastert: Somebody [tag]leak[\/tag]ed it out.<\/p>\n

Question: Completely untrue?<\/p>\n

Hastert: I know nothing about it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hastert’s office was far more categorical later in the evening, but “somebody leaked it out” is an odd way to phrase a flat denial.<\/p>\n

Paul Kiel put it<\/a> this way: “Let there be no doubt – Jack Abramoff has spilled the beans on Hastert.” I think the “[tag]culture of corruption[\/tag]” story may be poised to get even more interesting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As posted last night, [tag]ABC News[\/tag] reported late in the afternoon that House [tag]Speaker[\/tag] [tag]Dennis Hastert[\/tag] is “under [tag]investigation[\/tag] by the [tag]FBI[\/tag], which is seeking to determine his role in an ongoing public corruption probe into members of Congress,” according to “senior U.S. law enforcement officials” who spoke to ABC’s [tag]Brian Ross[\/tag]. The investigation reportedly […]<\/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-7504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7504","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=7504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}