Pols Line Up To Write Letters Praising Hastert

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert may have been a serial sexual abuser of teen boys he supervised as a high school teacher and wrestling coach, but there's no shortage of politicians singing his praises in letters to the federal district court judge seeking no jail time for the once powerful politician after he pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators and structuring $1.7 million in hush money payments to one of his victims to avoid federal currency law reporting requirements.

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay described Hastert as a "man of strong faith" and "great integrity," one of 41 letters the sentencing judge received. Hastert's attorneys withdrew another 20 or so letters written to the judge after the judge made clear their letters would be made public since the authors did not want their letters to become public. "We all have our flaws, but Dennis Hastert has very few," Delay wrote to Judge Thomas Durkin. "He is a good man who loves the Lord. He gets his integrity and values from him. He doesn't deserve what he is going through."

Former CIA Director Peter Goss, former Illinois Attorney General Tyrone Fahner, several former congressmen and retired federal law enforcement officials were among those writing letters of support. Former U.S. Rep. Tom Ewing (R-IL) says he and Hastert were as "close as brothers" and he knew Hastert to be a man of "faith, integrity and honesty." Former State Sen. Doris Karpiel called him the "best kind of public official." "Further punishment will serve no real purpose," she said since he had already "lost his good name."

Hastert's wife and children also wrote letters of support. Jean Hastert says she has never known a "more honorable and devoted man" who "spent his life in service to others." "If one of his students or wrestlers ever needed anything of him, he would be there for them, and he was never happier than when he could watch someone he helped succeed," Jean Hastert wrote. Hasert's wife, incidentally, was a high school girls PE teacher at the same high school where her husband was a serial sexual abuser of teen-age boys. His family expressed concerns about his deteriorating health if he is imprisoned. "He now has [a] myriad [of] medical issues and he should be with his family and not in the medical division of a correctional institution," son Joshua Hastert wrote.