There Oughta Be A Law Against It

In “Oliver Twist,” published 177 years ago, Mr. Bumble’s wife has acted questionably and he is told he’s liable because “the law supposes that your wife is under your direction.” To which
Mr. Bumble replies, “If the law supposes that, the law is a ass – a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor.”

Dickens began as a court reporter and his familiarity with the asininity of the law is everywhere in his work culminating in his masterpiece of legal ruination, “Bleak House.” In our time, there’s no evidence the law has gotten any less absurd. Consider the case of Dennis Hastert.

The former Speaker of the House was apparently threatened with the exposure of a long ago history of molesting students, when he was a high school wrestling coach. He agreed to pay $3.5 million in hush money to keep his sleazy past under wraps.

Of course, this required him to keep the fact of the payments under wraps as well. So he contrived to withdraw money in increments of less than $10,000. Anything over that amount is reported to the government, which is on the lookout for lots of cash slopping around. Why? Criminal enterprises like the drug trade, terrorism and tax evasion.

It didn’t work. The FBI showed up to have a chat with Hastert. When he was asked if the reason for the withdrawals was a distrust of banks, he answered yes. That was a mistake because the investigation had already led to the theory that he was covering up his sexual abuse. So he finds himself charged with breaking banking laws and, probably far worse, lying to the FBI.

Where to begin? Hastert allegedly molested students during his 16 years as a high school teacher and coach, but the statute of limitations has run out on that transgression, so he isn’t being charged with a crime for that. The law is an ass.

Before the FBI probe interrupted the payments, a victim of Hastert’s too-long-ago-to-prosecute crimes apparently collected $1.7 million of the demanded $3.5 million. But the blackmailer is not being charged with a crime because it isn’t regarded as blackmail, legally. It was just a financial arrangement between two consenting adults. A sort of unseemly contract. The law is an idiot. The blackmailer and the molester should be sharing a cell in hell.

Finally, Hastert didn’t amass a fortune of many millions being a wrestling coach, and that’s the only job he held before going to the Illinois House for six years and the U.S., House for 20 years. If he hadn’t spent a dime of his government pay for 12 years as a member at $174,000 per and eight years as Speaker at $233,000 a year it would only add up to about $3.8 million. And of course he actually had living expenses for those twenty years.

So where did the millions in hush money come from? Clever investments? No, we all know the answer. His real windfall has come during the eight years since he left Congress. He has been cashing in on his public service by working as a highly paid lobbyist. He has made millions twisting the arms of his former colleagues on behalf of the government of Turkey, Lorillard Tobacco, companies in the coal, ethanol, airport screening, home security, broadband and real estate industries – among others.

Thus, a former representative was paid millions to persuade sitting members of Congress to tweak a law here, rewrite a regulation there, or favor a bid for a government contract for a friend of a friend. No doubt the clients were grateful for the help and showed it with additional millions in campaign contributions to those members that were persuaded to come to their aid. After all, the business of America is business.

Like the no-longer-prosecutable sexual abuse and the blackmail that isn’t blackmail, no one will be going to jail for these bribes in the form of contributions. They are perfectly legal. How can that be, you ask? Because, in this case, the law isn’t just an ass or an idiot, it’s a whore, for sale to the highest bidder. And the people who write the laws are the ones taking the bribes. This system of legalized payoffs may be bad for the people, but it keeps their representatives in office, which is why reform is unlikely to come anytime soon.

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