The Justice Department has charged former House Speaker Dennis Hastert with lying to FBI agents and trying to hide financial transactions intended to keep prior misconduct secret, prosecutors alleged.

The 73-year-old Hastert, a top Republican on Capitol Hill before he left Congress in 2007, agreed five years ago to pay an unidentified person $3.5 million “to compensate for and conceal” prior “misconduct against” that person, according to prosecutors.

The question of course is, what did Hastert do that he is ow spending 3.5 million to cover up?

I wasn’t a fan obviously, but he did seem like a “clean” Republican.  Kind of a sad ending, really.

UPDATE:  Oy….

….the misconduct dates back to Hastert’s time as a high school teacher and coach in Yorkville, Illinois, where “Individual A” is from, and that Hastert was making the payments to conceal a past sexual relationship with him. The second anonymous official told the Times that the “misconduct” alleged in the indictment was sexual abuse