By Debbie Schlussel

As the GOP establishment continues its outrageous push to anoint RINO “moderate” House Speaker Paul Ryan as Republican Presidential nominee, I think it’s interesting that more details have come out about the despicable behavior of another former RINO “moderate” GOP House Speaker who had the exact same politics and BS moves. More details have emerged about Dennis Hastert and how the feds discovered he was paying off one of the many victims of his pedophile rape.

As you’ll recall, back when the Hastert indictment was still emerging, I surmised on this site that it had something to do with raping boys. And I turned out to be right. I also told you that my late former boss, Illinois U.S. Congressman Phil Crane hated Hastert and said he was not only a liberal Republicrat but also a major snake. Congressman Crane didn’t know how right he was.

Now, Chicago Tribune investigative reporters Christy Gutowski and Jeff Coen have identified at least four victims of Denny Hastert’s serial child molestation while he was a high school teacher and wrestling coach and abused his position of authority and power over kids. They’ve also figured out something I’ve wondered about: how the feds found out that Hastert was paying millions to hush one of his victims who was blackmailing him. Many conservatives have protested federal laws against “structuring”–withdrawing lower amounts of cash from the bank to avoid federal reporting thresholds and, thus, detection. These laws were meant to detect and find terrorists, drug dealers, and other criminals. But, while those laws have been used to prosecute Hastert, they’re not the reason Hastert’s payoffs were found out, and this perhaps shows that these laws aren’t effective.

For months, federal authorities have hinted at the motive behind the hush-money payments former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert has admitted to making: the sexual abuse of a teenage boy when Hastert was still a suburban high school teacher and wrestling coach. But now, a Tribune investigation has uncovered new details of the case — at least four people have made what law enforcement sources say are credible allegations of sexual abuse against Hastert.

The Tribune has determined the identities of three of them, all men, whose allegations stretch over a decade when they were teenagers and Hastert was their coach. One is dead. The Tribune has approached the other two — described in federal court records as Individuals A and D — and confirmed their roles in the case. . . . Each of the alleged victims identified by the Tribune had their struggles. Yet they all kept quiet about their hometown’s favorite son and the inappropriate sexual contact that they alleged he had with them when they were high school students and he was in a position of trust.

How the feds discovered Hastert’s payoffs to victim “Individual A”:

The man who received $1.7 million from Hastert and is at the center of the federal indictment — Individual A — declined to be interviewed by the Tribune. Behind the government’s carefully worded court documents, reporters discovered a sometimes-pained narrative of his life since his days as a standout wrestler in the 1970s and how his interactions with Hastert might have affected him.

It was nearly one year ago that the indictment against Hastert was unsealed. Prosecutors said only that Hastert had skirted banking laws and lied to the FBI to conceal misconduct against Individual A, who has known Hastert much of his life. Adding to Hastert’s alleged betrayal, Individual A is a relative of one of the retired congressman’s friends.

Hastert agreed during a 2010 meeting with Individual A to pay him $3.5 million in a financial agreement sources described as more akin to an agreed out-of-court settlement rather than extortion. . . . When Tribune reporters approached the middle-aged husband and father in February, Individual A said he didn’t want to be rude but was “not interested” in speaking publicly and walked away. His wife acknowledged that her husband was a “victim.” . . .

Hastert coached Individual A in the 1970s. A student leader, Individual A graduated from college, and when he applied for his first job in the mid-1980s, he listed Hastert as a reference. He got the job, but left a short time later because of an anxiety disorder he described at the time as devastating. He went on to work various jobs as he and his wife raised their family but fell deeper into debt. Court records show they had significant financial problems.

Individual A returned to his original profession, but he continued to struggle, providing another possible explanation for the financial arrangement with Hastert that was soon to begin. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor drunken driving and was placed on 12 months of court supervision. By March 2010, Individual A was on leave from his job for an undisclosed medical issue. He exhausted all of his paid time off by the end of the year and was terminated in 2011 after never coming back to work. By then, he had begun receiving payments from Hastert.

For nearly two years beginning in June 2010, Hastert made 15 cash withdrawals of $50,000 each, giving the $750,000 to Individual A at meetings about every six weeks, according to Hastert’s plea agreement with federal prosecutors. Then in April 2012, nearly two years after he had begun the withdrawals, bank officials warned Hastert such large withdrawals had to be reported to financial regulators. So he began illegally structuring the transactions in increments of less than $10,000 to avoid the requirement. In the more than two years that followed, Hastert made a total of 106 withdrawals in sums of less than $10,000, totaling $952,000, which he gave to Individual A. Authorities said the meetings in 2014 occurred about every three months.

In April 2014, a sheriff’s deputy on patrol after midnight found Individual A parked in his van on the side of the road. A window was broken. Soon, additional deputies were on the scene. During a search of the van, the deputies said they found three white envelopes containing stacks of $100 bills. The cash totaled $24,400, a report on the incident said. Asked why he had so much cash, Individual A said he was planning to sell one boat and buy another. During the stop, police found marijuana and related paraphernalia, and he was placed on court supervision for the misdemeanors, the police report said.

Individual A told authorities his only sources of income were disability payments and his wife’s earnings. By the time FBI agents questioned Hastert in December 2014 in his Plano home, he had paid Individual A about $1.7 million, or about half the amount the two had agreed on.

Another interesting and sad story is that of Hasterts victim, “Individual D.”

Individual D has talked to the Tribune at length but has not agreed to be named, although he is considering speaking at Hastert’s sentencing in federal court April 27. . . . The man whom prosecutors recently publicly described as Individual D has spoken privately with the Tribune in a quest to learn more about the scope of the case. . . .

A few years younger than Individual A, Individual D was a popular student and good athlete. He grew up to marry, have children and become a successful businessman. Prosecutors have said his decision to recently come forward has been a difficult one, and they have offered him the option of keeping his identity under seal in court records or appearing in court to read a victim-impact statement. . . . Hastert’s attorneys, at least preliminarily, said they didn’t plan to contest any facts alleged by Individual D, according to the transcript [DS: of a recent court hearing].

Wow, this part is really chutzpah (and it predictably backfired on Hastert):

With the sentencing hearing looming, a source said Hastert called one of Individual D’s relatives, hoping to get a letter to show Hastert had done good things with his life; that letter could help persuade Durkin to give Hastert a more lenient sentence. Individual D then made a call of his own. He told federal authorities he would prepare a statement to be used in court detailing what Hastert did to him.

If it weren’t for that “unfortuitous” traffic stop involving Individual A, Denny Hastert would have gotten away with what he did (though he’d have been $3.5 million lighter in hush money payoffs). And he’s nearly gotten away with it anyway. At age 74, press reports say he’s very ill and disabled after a stroke and blood infection. At least one press source reports him to be “near death,” though I think that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. But even the Tribune says his blood infection was “near-fatal.”

Remember, just as serial child rapist Hastert’s years as GOP Speaker of the House were marked with unprecedented cooperation with Bill Clinton, so, too, is Paul Ryan’s time so far, marked by major back-scratching for Barack Obama. Denny Hastert was the Paul Ryan of his time.

And while Paul Ryan may not be a pedophile, he’s not that different from Denny Hastert in ideology and conduct in office–he kept the conservatives in the House in check. We certainly don’t need yet another RINO interloper as GOP Prez candidate, assuring a liberal Democrat landslide.

Also, if Denny Hastert managed to cover up this sickening, depraved, criminal lifestyle for decades, including nearly a decade as House Speaker and two heartbeats away from the Presidency, who knows what Paul Ryan is hiding?

The lesson of Denny Hastert is that anything is possible and that you can get away with it for a very long time . . . even in our internet/Facebook/365-24-7 cameras everywhere society and even if you are one of the most powerful men in the free world and a ready target for scrupulous investigation.

Sometimes the most “vetted” men in the world aren’t vetted, in fact, after all.