Dennis Hastert, the longest-serving Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, died Saturday at his home in Plano, Illinois. He was 84. Kendall County Coroner Jacquie Purcell announced the death Monday, saying Hastert died of natural causes while receiving hospice care.
Born January 2, 1942, in Aurora, Illinois, Hastert spent 16 years as a teacher and wrestling coach in the Yorkville school district before entering politics. Elected to the House in 1987 representing Illinois' 14th district, he served 20 years in Congress. In 1999, after Newt Gingrich resigned amid ethics controversies and Bob Livingston withdrew from the race, Hastert unexpectedly won the speakership — the "accidental speaker." As the 59th Speaker, he led the chamber from 1999 to 2007, the longest tenure of any Republican speaker in history.
In his first weeks on the job, Hastert presided over the House while the Senate conducted the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. He later steered the chamber through the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the anthrax-letter crisis that October. After George W. Bush reclaimed the White House, Hastert pushed much of the president's agenda into law, including massive tax cuts and a major expansion of Medicare prescription drug benefits — the biggest change to Medicare in decades. Democrats retook the House in the 2006 midterms, installing Nancy Pelosi as speaker; Hastert resigned from Congress in November 2007 and became a lobbyist six months later.
Hastert's legacy collapsed in 2015, when he was accused of evading banking regulations as part of a plan to pay hush money to conceal unspecified "prior misconduct." Prosecutors later revealed that the misconduct involved the sexual abuse of at least four teenage boys on his wrestling team in Yorkville between 1965 and 1981. In April 2016, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison, making him one of the highest-ranking American politicians ever ordered behind bars. At sentencing, the judge called him a "serial child molester." He served 13 months, paid a $250,000 fine to a crime victims fund, and underwent sex-offender treatment.
The case began in 2013, when the FBI flagged suspicious cash withdrawals, including $3.5 million paid to someone identified only as "Individual A." In 2014, a grand jury indicted Hastert on charges of making false statements to investigators and structuring withdrawals to evade bank reporting requirements. "Individual A" later accused Hastert of sexually abusing him at age 14 in a motel room on the way home from wrestling camp.
Hastert is survived by his wife, Jean Kahl, and their two adult sons, Ethan and Joshua. From accidental speaker to convicted felon, his arc has been described by American media as one of the most dramatic falls in U.S. political history.