J. Dennis Hastert, a once-obscure Illinois congressman who rose to become the longest-serving Republican speaker of the House, died at age 84. The coroner's office in Kendall County, Illinois, was notified of his death on Saturday evening. He was pronounced dead at his home while under hospice care.
Hastert's fall from grace began after he left government. In 2016, he was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison for violating banking laws, having made secret payments to cover up sexual misconduct with a male student. He was released in 2017. The federal judge who sentenced him called him "a serial child molester." Admissions at his sentencing revealed he sexually abused teenage wrestlers as young as 14 whom he coached at Yorkville High School in Yorkville, Illinois, from 1965 to 1981.
His political rise was equally dramatic. He emerged as a surprise consensus choice for speaker in 1998 during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. He held the post during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and worked closely with President George W. Bush. He forced through an expansion of Medicare to cover prescription drug costs. However, the 2006 midterm elections cost him the speakership. Democratic victory was fueled by accusations that he failed to respond aggressively to allegations against Republican House member Mark Foley regarding male House pages.
Known as Denny or Coach, Hastert was brought into the leadership team in 1995 as chief assistant to Tom DeLay. He authored the memoir "Speaker: Lessons From Forty Years in Coaching and Politics" in 2004. The federal accusations of conduct that occurred long before he was in Congress shocked many former aides and colleagues.
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