![]() ![]() Hastert avoided a public trial by pleading guilty, but in June, CNN reported the payments were to a former student who accused Hastert of sexual misconduct. The indictment in the case explained only that the payments were related to “prior misconduct” against a person who once lived in Yorkville, Illinois, where Hastert was the high school wrestling coach for more than 15 years. The mystery in the case remains what Hastert, the longest serving Speaker in American history, was trying to hide. But in 2015, the now-retired congressman pled guilty to violating federal banking laws to hide making $1.7 million in hush money payments. Dennis Hastert’s reputation as a Midwest nice guy helped him win the House Speaker’s gavel in 1999 when the GOP needed a scandal-free leader to helm the party during the Clinton impeachment. Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination in national polls, thanks in no small part to Bernie’s own declaration that the American people “are sick of ya damn emails!” ![]() The FBI continues to investigate the legality of the server and the information shared on it, but Clinton remains more than 20 points ahead of Sen. The $4.5 million effort produced no “smoking gun,” few new lines of inquiry, and a collective shrug from the American public. But ultimately, Gowdy’s long-awaited 11-hour public hearing with Clinton as the star witness may have put the controversy to bed, at least for now. As a result, Clinton released 55,000 pages of email to the State Department for review, which then released batches to the public under a court order, to the delight (and occasional frustration) of reporters everywhere.Ĭlinton’s own tortured explanation of the account, along with her endless journey to call it a mistake, kept the speculation about the matter burning for months. Trey Gowdy to investigate the 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Those questions and dozens more followed the discovery of the private server by the Benghazi Select Committee, a House panel led by GOP Rep. Was the email hacked by the Chinese? Did she illegally disclose state secrets? Where did the emoticons on her Blackberry go “:-(” as she once asked an aide in an email? It may not have been the most damaging scandal of 2015, but it certainly took up the most oxygen: Hilary Clinton’s long-ago decision to use a private email server to handle her correspondence as Secretary of State. From secret servers to the Secret Service to a sex bus across the pond, here are the lies, cover-ups and takedowns that defined bad behavior in 2015. It wouldn’t be a year in politics without a scandal or two.
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