[5] In court submissions filed in April 2016, federal prosecutors alleged that Hastert had molested at least four boys as young as 14 years of age during his time as a high school wrestling coach.

[10] In the summer of 1980, however, State Representative Al Schoeberiein had become terminally ill, and local Republican party officials selected Hastert as the successor over two major rivals, lawyer Tom Johnson of West Chicago and Mayor Richard Verbic of Elgin.

"[14] He gained a reputation as a dealmaker and party leader known for "asking his colleagues to write their spending requests on a notepad so he could carry them into negotiating sessions" and holding early-morning pre-meetings to organize talking points.

[10][12] Hastert was nominated to replace him; in the general election in November 1986, he defeated Democratic candidate Mary Lou Kearns, the Kane County coroner, in a relatively close race.

[12] In September 1998, the two added an extra $250,000 to the Defense Department appropriations bill for "pharmacokinetics research" which paid for an Army experiment with nicotine chewing gum manufactured by the Amurol Confections Company in Yorkville, in Hastert's district.

Such groups as the National Right to Life Committee, the Christian Coalition, the Chamber of Commerce and the NRA Political Victory Fund all gave his voting record perfect scores of 100.

"[56] Despite this shift, Hastert was widely seen as "affable" and low-key; he did not seek the limelight, "become a regular on Sunday talk shows or anything close to a household word or figure," or "openly exhibit the kind of snarling or mean partisan demeanor that made Tom DeLay such a mark of hatred for Democrats.

[67] Even though there is no evidence that a payment was made, an official at the Turkish Consulate is said to have claimed in a recording that was translated by Sibel Edmonds that the price for Hastert to withdraw the Armenian genocide resolution would have been at least $500,000.

[68][69] "Hastert and the senior Republican leadership in the House were able to maintain party discipline to a great degree", which allowed them to regularly enact legislation, despite a narrow majority (less than 12 seats) in the 106th and 107th Congresses.

"[71] In a February 2003 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Hastert "launched into a lengthy and passionate denunciation" of France's resistance to the Iraq war and stated that he wanted to go "nose-to-nose" with the country.

[86][87] In 2005, following Hurricane Katrina, Hastert told an Illinois newspaper that "It looks like a lot of that place [referring to New Orleans] could be bulldozed" and stated that spending billions of dollars to rebuild the devastated city "doesn't make sense to me.

[56] A September 2005 article in Vanity Fair revealed that during her work, former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds had heard Turkish wiretap targets boast of covert relations with Hastert.

[92] Then-House Majority Leader John Boehner and National Republican Congressional Committee chair Thomas M. Reynolds stated that they told Hastert about Foley's conduct in spring 2005.

[93] Much of this increase in net worth was the result of various real-estate investments during Hastert's time in Congress (including the controversial land deal several miles from the proposed Prairie Parkway site).

[17] State Senator Chris Lauzen, Geneva Mayor Kevin Burns, and wealthy dairy businessman Jim Oberweis all entered the campaign for the Republican nomination to succeed Hastert.

[126][127] This suit was filed under the qui tam provision of the False Claims Act (FCA), an anti-fraud statute that allows a private party to pursue a case on behalf of the federal government.

"[126] John, a businessman from the Chicago suburb of Burr Ridge, Illinois,[125][128] also said that he traveled with Hastert and collaborated with him on "a planned Grand Prix racetrack in Southern California and sports events to be organized in the Middle East" as well as other projects.

[130] The dismissal "did not turn on whether Hastert actually misused the speaker's office, but rather whether John met a prerequisite for [a False Claims Act] suit: that he brought the allegations to the government's attention before anyone else and before they were made public.

[122][142] In June The New York Times reported that Hastert had approached a business associate, J. David John, in 2010, to look for a financial adviser to come up with an annuity plan that would "generate a substantial cash payout each year.

[20] On May 29, 2015, Senator Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois, who served in the House throughout Hastert's tenure as speaker, released a statement reading: "Anyone who knows Denny is shocked and confused by the recent news.

[159] The DSCC also called upon Republican Senators John Boozman of Arkansas and Roy Blunt of Missouri (who received $11,000 and $5,000, respectively, from Hastert's PAC in recent years) to return or donate the funds.

[163] On June 2, 2015, former Federal Housing Finance Agency director and former U.S. Representative Mel Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, released a statement saying: Over 15 years ago I heard an unseemly rumor from someone who, contrary to what has been reported, was not an intermediary or advocate for the alleged victim's family.

[171] Hastert hired attorney Thomas C. Green, a white-collar criminal defense lawyer and senior counsel at the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm Sidley Austin, to defend him.

[173] The June 9, 2015, arraignment generated a degree of media interest at the Everett McKinley Dirksen United States Courthouse not seen since the proceedings against Illinois governors Rod Blagojevich and George Ryan on corruption charges.

[181][182] On June 12, federal prosecutors, with the agreement of Hastert's attorneys, filed a motion for a protective order seeking to bar the public disclosure of the identity of "Individual A" and other sensitive information.

[189][190] A Federal Election Commission report lists the defense fund's address as a Sunapee, New Hampshire property owned by Republican donor and ex-Gerald Ford White House staffer James Rooney.

[2] In the prosecution's filing ahead of sentencing, federal prosecutors made allegations of sexual misconduct against Hastert (the first time they had done so publicly), saying that he had molested at least four boys as young as 14 (including Steve Reinboldt and others) while he worked as a high school wrestling coach decades earlier.

[204] Of the 41 letters that were made public, several were from current or former members of Congress: Tom DeLay, John T. Doolittle, David Dreier, Thomas W. Ewing, and Porter Goss (who also is a former CIA director).

"[210] Jacob Sullum of Reason opined that the financial structuring offense to which Hastert pleaded guilty "should not be a crime ... even if it occasionally provides the means for punishing actual criminals who would otherwise escape justice.

"[211] Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic expressed similar views, writing: "The alarming aspect of this case is the fact that an American is ultimately being prosecuted for the crime of evading federal government surveillance.