CBS News acknowledged that it “missed the mark” in its obituary of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert after initially failing to prominently mention allegations that he sexually abused teenage boys.
The network deleted and replaced a social media post about Hastert, 84, who died of natural causes at his home in Illinois on Monday.
Hastert’s political legacy was destroyed after allegations surfaced that he had abused children while working as a wrestling coach, years before entering national politics.
The longest-serving Republican speaker in U.S. House history pleaded guilty in 2015 to a banking offense involving hush-money payments intended to conceal his past sexual abuse.
He avoided prosecution on sex-crime charges because the statute of limitations had expired.
According to The Daily Beast, CBS’s original obituary said Hastert had been “jailed for violating banking laws” but did not mention the sexual abuse allegations until near the end of the second paragraph.
After facing intense criticism over its portrayal of Hastert, the network removed the post and republished the obituary, saying the original version had “missed the mark.”
The revised obituary stated: “Hastert was jailed on charges related to his concealment of hush-money payments made to cover up sexual abuse.”
CBS News said it had “missed the mark” in its obituary of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert after initially failing to mention allegations that he sexually abused teenage boys.
The network deleted and replaced a social media post about Hastert, 84, who died of natural causes at his Illinois home on Monday.
Eight years after leaving the House, Hastert was accused of abusing at least four high school students in the late 1970s while working as a teacher and wrestling coach in Yorkville, a Chicago suburb.
Hastert served as speaker from 1999 to 2007 and ultimately became the highest-ranking elected official in U.S. history to serve time in prison. He spent 13 months behind bars.
Eight years after leaving Congress, allegations emerged that he had abused at least four high school students in the late 1970s while teaching and coaching wrestling in the Chicago suburb of Yorkville.
Appearing before a judge in 2016, Hastert admitted in open court that he had abused an unspecified number of boys.
Prosecutors described abuse involving five boys, some as young as 14. They said Hastert used his position of authority to commit acts including “intentional touching of minors’ groin area and genitals or oral sex with a minor.”
In one case, a victim said Hastert invited him from wrestling camp to stay in his hotel room, where he abused him.
Decades later, after the man confronted Hastert about the abuse, the former speaker secretly agreed to pay him $3.5 million in exchange for his silence.
The arrangement began to unravel when law enforcement investigated suspicious withdrawals from Hastert’s bank account that were linked to payments to the victim. Hastert initially insisted the withdrawals were nothing unusual.
Through his lawyer, however, Hastert told detectives that he was the target of an extortion attempt by someone falsely accusing him of sexual abuse.
Hastert, the longest-serving Republican speaker in U.S. House history, pleaded guilty in 2015 to a banking offense involving hush-money payments used to conceal his past sexual abuse.
When Hastert, then 74, was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2016, he had suffered a stroke and arrived in court in a wheelchair
Hastert’s portrait was eventually removed from the US Capitol
He pleaded guilty in 2015 to violating federal banking laws by structuring withdrawals to evade bank reporting requirements as he sought to hide hush money payments to a sexual abuse victim.
By the time he was sentenced the following year, Hastert, then 74, had suffered a stroke and arrived in court in a wheelchair.
‘The defendant is a serial child molester,’ US District Judge Thomas Durkin said at the time. ‘Some actions can obliterate a lifetime of good works.’
He received a 15 month prison sentence, along with orders to enter a sex offender treatment program and pay $250,000 to a victims’ fund.
Speaking to the court, Hastert said he was ‘deeply ashamed’ of his behavior but never explicitly acknowledged the abuse.
‘I wanted to apologize for the boys I mistreated when I was their coach,’ he said.
‘What I did was wrong, and I regret it. They looked to me, and I took advantage of them,’ he added, noting that he was ‘struggling to come to terms with events that occurred almost four decades ago.’
The sister of one of the victims fired back, telling Hastert: ‘Don’t be a coward, Mr Hastert. Tell the truth. What you did wasn’t misconduct. It was sexual abuse of a minor.’
His portrait was eventually removed from the US Capitol, while Wheaton College, his alma mater, removed his name from a public policy center.
