It's a small thing, but it really makes all the difference. Dennis Hastert is, I'm sorry to say, NOT a convicted child molester. He was never convicted of any sex offenses. What he was convicted for was "structuring"(basically a way of hiding money from the government) and "making false statements". Neither of those were sex offenses.
Now...why do we know he's a child rapist? Well, because the "structuring" charges concerned money that he was using to pay off one of his victims for their silence. In the course of the trial, facts and testimony came to light that, in the eyes of the state, confirmed that Dennis Hastert raped multiple young boys while a coach for a high school. This was information pertinent only to proving that Hastert hid the hush money he was giving to one of them. Ergo, he only went to prison for, basically, defrauding the government. Because the information came out past the statute of limitations on reporting the crimes he committed to those boys, there's no way of prosecuting him for any of it. Effectively, he was taken down much the way Capone was - not for what everyone knew he did, but the fact that he denied the government money in the process. Because in the end, that's all most of them care about - their cut.
So, once again, Dennis Hastert was NEVER convicted of raping children, but he IS in prison because he raped children. Some may think this not an important distinction, but accuracy is important because it establishes our credibility. It also helps show how corrupt and broken our system is in prosecuting these types of crimes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Hastert#Criminal_prosecution_and_child_sexual_abuse
edit: Further, there are a lot of rumors I've seen from unsubstantiated sources lately that suggest that things may happen in the very near future. We may see a number of politicians with legal troubles. Keep in mind that some may be dealt with in terms that are similarly deceptive in terms of their crimes. If we see Senators going down for strange, out-of-nowhere charges...we may well be watching the closest we'll ever get to pizzagate prosecutions.
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badastrid ago
True. And Al Capone went down for tax evasion. You get them where you can.
remedy4reality ago
He 'got' 15 measly months and Capone 'served' his time in luxury..
JUSTICE ?
badastrid ago
Nope.