Denny Hastert Indicted For... Withdrawing Money From His Bank

As you may or may not know -- well, you almost certainly know it; I don't know why I'm low-balling you here -- it's illegal to "structure" withdrawals from a bank in order to evade the IRS $10,000 (?) threshold which triggers a reporting requirement.

Well, Denny Hastert did that, feds claim. He is indicted for Malicious Withdrawals of His Own Money.

Now, the reason he seems to have done this is to pay off an alleged "victim" of "prior bad acts" -- someone I guess who could expose him. Maybe a blackmailer, maybe not. So he took the money in sub-$10,000 withdrawals to avoid federal reporting and embarrassment about paying off a legitimate victim and/or blackmailer. (Sometimes it's hazy.)

Now, those "Prior bad acts" are not specified, and further, are not part of the charges against Hastert -- whatever those acts are, they are not the feds' concern.

However, they are indicting him for Withdrawing Money With Intent To Withdraw Money.

Someone on Twitter -- didn't see who -- noted that they wouldn't be crying for Hastert, as Hastert is a member of the political class who has conspired to make everything illegal, and how he's hoist upon his own petard.

I think it's about time we stopped merely complaining about this shit and started demanding the feds repeal this bullshit law and their many other we'll-get-you-on-something laws.

Open Thread.

posted by Ace at 06:23 PM

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