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Why Is It a Crime For Dennis Hastert To Evade Government Scrutiny?
HughPickens.com writes: Dennis Hastert is about the least sympathetic figure one can imagine. The former House Speaker got filthy rich as a lobbyist trading on contacts he gained in office, and his leadership coincided with Congress's abject failure to exercise oversight or protect civil liberties after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Now, Hastert stands accused of improper sexual contact with a boy he knew years ago while teaching high school and trying to hide that sordid history by paying the young man to keep quiet. If federal prosecutors could meet the legal thresholds for charging and convicting Hastert of a sex crime, they would be fully justified in aggressively pursuing the matter.
Yet, as Conor Friedersdorf writes in The Atlantic, the Hastert indictment doesn't charge him for, or even accuse him of, sexual misconduct. Rather, as Glenn Greenwald notes, "Hastert was indicted for two alleged felonies: 1) withdrawing cash from his bank accounts in amounts and patterns designed to hide the payments; and 2) lying to the FBI about the purpose of those withdrawals once they detected them and then inquired with him." It isn't illegal to withdraw money from the bank, nor to compensate someone in recognition of past harms, nor to be the victim of a blackmail scheme. So why should it be a crime to hide those actions from the U.S. government? The current charges could be motivated by a desire to prosecute Hastert for sex crimes. But that dodges the issue. "In order to punish him for that crime, the government should charge him with it, then prosecute him with due process and convict him in front of a jury of his peers," says Greenwald. "What over-criminalization does is allow the government to turn anyone it wants into a felon, and thus punish them without having to overcome those vital burdens. Regardless of one's views of Hastert or his alleged misconduct here, it should take little effort to see why nobody should want that."
Yet, as Conor Friedersdorf writes in The Atlantic, the Hastert indictment doesn't charge him for, or even accuse him of, sexual misconduct. Rather, as Glenn Greenwald notes, "Hastert was indicted for two alleged felonies: 1) withdrawing cash from his bank accounts in amounts and patterns designed to hide the payments; and 2) lying to the FBI about the purpose of those withdrawals once they detected them and then inquired with him." It isn't illegal to withdraw money from the bank, nor to compensate someone in recognition of past harms, nor to be the victim of a blackmail scheme. So why should it be a crime to hide those actions from the U.S. government? The current charges could be motivated by a desire to prosecute Hastert for sex crimes. But that dodges the issue. "In order to punish him for that crime, the government should charge him with it, then prosecute him with due process and convict him in front of a jury of his peers," says Greenwald. "What over-criminalization does is allow the government to turn anyone it wants into a felon, and thus punish them without having to overcome those vital burdens. Regardless of one's views of Hastert or his alleged misconduct here, it should take little effort to see why nobody should want that."
to turn anyone it wants into a felon!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
How is this news for nerds?
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See here:
http://popehat.com/2015/05/29/...
(Note the writer is a former federal prosecutor)
From the article:
"We imagine law enforcement operating like we see on TV: someone commits a crime, everyone knows what the crime is, law enforcement reacts by charging them with that crime. But that's not how federal prosecution always works. Particularly with high-profile targets, federal prosecution is often an exercise in searching for a theory to prosecute someone that the feds would like to prosecute. There is an element of creativity: what federal statute can we find to prosecute this person?"
Someone wanted to go after Hastert, they found a way.
Do you have ESP?
“There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”
... interfering with a police investigation should be legal if the person being investigated feels they've done nothing wrong? Good luck getting widespread buy-in with that concept.
1) The FBI found just cause to suspect a crime; what the subject was doing appeared to be money laundering, which - as it should - triggers an investigation. 2) They began to investigate the crime. 3) They found no crime, and thus did not prosecute for it. However, in the process, the subject deliberately interfered with the investigation and made false statements to the police, which is a crime. 4) The FBI prosecutes for the crime committed in #3.
I fail to see the problem here.
That said, I'm not surprised that Greenwald does. And I can just imagine the riot he'll throw if they ever go after him for his long-time lack of payment of the court-imposed levies concerning his tax evasion for his porn business.
"Who the **** put an emergency exit in the interrogation room?!" -- Police chief, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
Hiding large cash transactions was made illegal in the Bank Secrecy Act and has been illegal since 1970.
...which was then amended and strengthened by the Patriot Act. To quote the article I linked (which I'm guessing you followed the /. flow and didn't bother to read):
The indictment suggests that law enforcement officials relied on the Patriot Act’s expansion of bank reporting requirements to snare Hastert. As the IRS notes, “the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 increased the scope” of cash reporting laws “to help trace funds used for terrorism.” The Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, which was amended by the Patriot Act, had already required banks to report suspicious transactions.
So how did this law, whatever its merits, get passed?
On Oct. 24, 2001, then-House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) shepherded the Patriot Act through the House of Representatives. It passed 357 to 66, advancing to the Senate and then-President George W. Bush’s desk for signing.
Hastert took credit for House passage in a 2011 interview, claiming it “wasn’t popular, and there was a lot of fight in the Congress” over it.
Excuse me, Mr. Hastert: Is this your petard?
If you applied any of the same logic on what is hitting hastert... and overreacted to the same extent... Hillary would be executed.
hastert is being pushed around for moving his money around in suspicious ways. The Clintons do that every day. No. Literally every day. They did it yesterday and they'll do it tomorrow. They've been doing it for years and years and years. The Clinton scandals go back to before Bill became president. And no... it isn't all the vast right wing conspiracy. Even MSNBC and the NYTs are admitting it is a fucking problem.
Do I like Dennis? No... I don't care for the man. But I have a bigger problem with the justice department becoming politically compromised and doing whatever it wants on the basis of political alliances. It needs to be politically non-aligned. And we can see very clearly that is not what is going on.
The justice department, the IRS, the EPA, the Department of Labor... they're all being used to protect political allies and hurt political enemies.
Don't like someone? Audit them with the IRS. They didn't get the hint? Send the EPA in there to find some nit picky thing going on that is impossible to comply with to fine the person with. That didn't work? Send in the department of labor. Ask all the women that work there if any of them would like to get a million dollar settlement for filiing a false discrimination lawsuit.
Keep it up. Everyone submits when the pressure comes down on them.
The Gibson guitar factory got raided by the FBI for having rare woods... finger boards... and they said something about how that was a violation of some law from the 1920s that makes no sense. Coincidentally, the CEO of Gibson was giving money to the rival political party. Tisk tisk. Didn't the fool know you're only allowed to make donations to the ruling party?
And on and on and on.
Here someone will say I'm exaggerating or only painting one party in a bad light. That isn't my intention. I am equally against either party really. My issue is that THIS party is the one doing it RIGHT NOW. So I'm going to focus on them. RIGHT NOW. If they lose power and the other party starts doing it, THEN I'll be talking about them. it isn't happening right now.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
It sounds like he got caught lying about a crime he didn't commit, which is one of the more ridiculous aspects of the US judicial system.
If he didn't commit a crime there was no reason to lie about it. He had the option to say nothing under the 5th amendment. He certainly cannot reasonable argue that he didn't know it was a crime to lie to the FBI about his activities especially since he helped write some of the laws pertaining to prosecution of those very same activities.
We could get rid off the reason for money laundering laws in the first place. End the stupid drug war already. Have a tax system that does not require tracking one's every financial transaction. Then there's no excuse for this part of our garbage heap of a legal code.
I hate to use this guy as a catalyst for reform, but if that's what it takes so be it.
One might ask why we believe that our internet communications should be private, but our monetary transactions should be carefully tracked. Especially in the sense that today, more than ever, money transfer is now mostly just the transfer of bits.
People frequently go on about how the government could harass or attack politicians or activists with the information they obtain, but here we have the government doing the same thing with financial reporting. Sure, Hastert's probably a scumbag sex offender, but no one has charged him with that. They're using other laws to push their agenda.
It was a clever little bit of legal trickery which got Al Capone in jail for tax evasion, and certainly you could argue that he needed to be stopped. The problem is, we really never reformed the system to make someone like Capone less likely to be able to corrupt the state and local governments, we're still relying on these sort of loopholes to get convictions that the government wouldn't otherwise try to get in a court of law on the merits of their actual case because they'd fail. It is skating very close to laws being passed to make you a felon in cases where you wouldn't be convicted, but the prosecutor (and not the judge or jury) really wants you convicted of something.
We must disagree.
We did indeed pass and have enforced, a lot of legislation that's helped reduce corruption. No, it's not stopped,and SuperPACs allow bribery on a huge scale. But the RICO Act, along with a long list of others, have helped keep things somewhat open and at least partially above board. They're not thoroughly successful. If Hastert had done the reporting, he wouldn't be in deep crap at this point, his secrets intact for better and worse. The reporting has a purpose: keep large transfers from skirting reporting in taxes.... like taking your annual profits to a tax haven, and so forth.
The man otherwise, appears to be a skunk for this and many other reasons.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
The primary objection to these laws — and the reason they are considered "bullshit" — is that they allow confiscation of funds without having to prove anything. The government does not even need to file a suit!
None of the victims are "criminals" — because nobody is a criminal until found guilty in a court of law — and your above-quoted excuse for the law is thus automatically invalid.
Worse, the practice — and the bullshit laws "authorizing" it — are in direct violation of the Fifth Amendment, which purports to protect us against this exact practice (emphasis mine): "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated".
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Hastert is caught in a similar pickle. Meet the reporting requirements; they're designed to trap this, and other kinds of illicit behavior.
They don't just trap illicit behavior. Legitimate businesses have been hit, many times, for structuring. They charge the money in the bank account, not the individual or business, so you have to *prove* it's legitimate. Often they'll let you get half or so of it back in exchange for not involving the legal system. People have been out of tens of thousands of dollars for this.
Restaurants
A Mexican restaurant: "Critics say the I.R.S. rarely investigates such cases to see if the business owner has legitimate reasons for making small deposits, such as an insurance policy that covers only a limited amount of cash."
Multiple small businesses in Michigan
Simply speaking: Many businesses will frequently make deposits under $10k for two reasons:
1. That's simply what they make
2. Insurance policies that only cover 'up to' $10k or so of cash, so business policy is to make a deposit whenever they're close to that amount so they're always covered.
The IRS doesn't care, will look at it as 'structuring', and seize all your bank accounts.
I don't read AC A human right
Then he should have told the FBI the truth when they asked what the money was for. Or simply said, "I choose not to give a statement." Lying to the Feds is beyond fucking stupid. That's their "gotcha" card and it baffles me that so many seemingly intelligent people fall into such an easily avoidable trap.
There's a right to remain silent. I suggest using it....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
And if you happen to talk to the FBI, just don't lie to them.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The US government decided that they wanted to know all about large cash transactions
The $10,000 threshold was set in 1970, when it really was a large amount (over $60,000 in today's dollars). Now, not so much, and over the years, the number of people becoming ensnared due to transactions that are not in support of any crime has increased. What do you say to that, you statist scum? Do you seriously suppose that the threshold was not linked to inflation but left to have its real value fall continuously and indefinitely because of oversight? Because if so, you're either a bald-faced liar, or, well, I have a bridge to sell you.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
They don't need to convict you to keep the money.