Dennis Hastert, disgraced former House speaker, dies at 84 - CBS News
By: Kaia Hubbard (CBS News)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
By Kaia Hubbard Kaia Hubbard Politics Reporter Kaia Hubbard is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital, based in Washington, D.C. Read Full BioKaia Hubbard
Updated on: October 5, 2026 / 9:59 AM EDT / CBS News
Add CBS News on Google
Washington — Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who represented Illinois for two decades in Congress and was jailed for violating banking laws, has died, a coroner in Illinois said. He was 84.
Both the longest-serving Republican House speaker and the highest-ranking elected U.S. official to serve a prison sentence, Hastert's stunning fall from grace came in 2016, when he was sentenced to 15 months in prison on charges related to his concealment of hush money payments made to cover up his sexual abuse of teenage boys during his time as a high school wrestling coach.
Kendall County Coroner Jacquie Purcell confirmed Monday that Hastert died at his home over the weekend due to natural causes. No further details were given.
Born in 1942 in Aurora, Illinois, Hastert grew up in afarming community. He went on to graduate from Wheaton College, where he received a degree in economics, before earning a teaching degree from Northern Illinois University. Hastert married Jean Kahl in 1973. The couple had two sons.
Hastert worked as a teacher in Illinois for 16 years while coaching wrestling. In 1976, he was named Illinois Coach of the Year. Four decades later, he would admit to sexually abusing boys during his time as a coach.
Hastert then served in the Illinois legislature, before going on to be elected to represent Illinois' 14th district in the U.S. House in 1986.
Hastert served in Congress from 1987 to 2007. With the mentorship of House Minority Leader Robert. H Michel, Hastert's profile grew among the GOP ranks, and in 1995, he became chief deputy whip. When former House Speaker Newt Gingrich stepped down in 1998, Hastert became the conference's second choice for his successor, following Rep. Bob Livingston's decision to step aside amid a scandal over extra-marital affairs.
Known as the "accidental speaker," Hastert would go on to become the longest-serving Republican speaker in history. During his tenure, Hastert, who had been a vocal critic of the Clinton administration, worked closely with former President George W. Bush on his policy agenda.
Among Hastert's most enduring imprints on the chamber is the rule that bears his name, which informally requires that the House vote only on measures that have a majority of support from the majority party in the chamber. The rule, which has faced criticism for making Congress more partisan, has posed hurdles for Republican House leadership in recent years.
After House Republicans lost the majority in the 2006 midterm elections, Hastert opted to leave leadership, before resigning from Congress in 2007.
Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert on his way to the House floor to make his farewell address to Congress on Nov. 15, 2007. Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Hastert became a lobbyist and consultant after leaving office. In 2013, the FBI and IRS began investigating the former speaker surrounding suspicions that he was illegally structuring bank transactions. In 2015, Hastert was indicted for structuring bank transactions to evade reporting requirements and making false statements to the FBI.
Hastert pleaded guilty in 2015 to violating banking laws by making repeated large cash withdrawals, which were revealed to be going to one of his victims. During the hearing, Hastert admitted to sexually abusing boys during his time as their wrestling coach. At his sentencing, U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin called Hastert a "serial child molester," and sentenced him to 15 months in prison, a $250,000 fine and ordered him to participate in a sex offender program. Hastert was not charged with sex-related crimes, as the statutes of limitations had expired. He served 13 months in a federal prison before his release in 2017.
Zachary Farden, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said after Hastert was sentenced that there are "no winners in any of this"
"Mr. Hastert's legend and legacy are gone, and in its place are a broken, humiliated man," Farden said. "That is how it should be."
In:
- Dennis Hastert
- Obituary
Trolling, taunting, spamming, and off topic comments may be removed at the discretion of group mods. NT members that are known plagiarists, repeat comments, or continue to disrupt/deflect the conversation risk having all of their comments deleted. Please remember to quote the person(s) to whom you are replying to preserve continuity of this seed. Any use of the phrase "Trump Derangement Syndrome" or the TDS acronym in a comment will be deleted. Any use of the term "Brandon", "Traitor Joe", or any variations thereof, when referring to President Biden, will be deleted. Right wing trolls can expect to have their irrelevant questions and comments deleted. Posting debunked lies will be subject to deletion. Use of the terms "leftist" or "lefty" will also be subject to deletion. ©
Tags
Who is online
86 visitors
No great loss
scratch another trump supporter and republican voter ...
hastert was way ahead of his time in the GOP ...
You might even say he was a trail blazer
He was just the one who got caught among his contemporaries. Other rightwing conservatives learned from his mistakes which they see as not the crimes he committed but his inability to hide them.
And yet a good lesson of how they hide in plain sight and get re-elected, over and over again.
maybe his supporters were willing to overlook his moral defects because they liked his conservative policies ...
Ah yes...the family values and morality police crowd
After so many like Hastert, Santos, Mills, Schock, Cunningham, Ney, Trump himself, "I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy" why can't we all just accept that the GOP is the party of grifters, felons, liars and sexual predators? They voted for a convicted felon for President; that defines them as either not smart or not good people.
MAGA loves these people because they "own" the libs. The nastier they talk the more MAGA likes it
[✘]
he's here to defend republican pedophiles ...
And still challenged by semantics apparently...
[✘]