CBS2 Chicago, IL
Aug 4 2005
Magazine Article Claims Hastert Took Bribes
Story Alleges Hastert Took Money To Block Armenian Resolution
Mike Flannery
Reporting
(CBS) A spokesman for speaker of the House Speaker Denny Hastert
tonight is ridiculing a magazine story that claims Hastert may have
taken bribes.
There is little hard evidence to support the explosive allegations.
The claim is that Hastert may have accepted tens of thousands
of dollars in campaign contributions in exchange for blocking a
Congressional resolution about a bloody Armenian-Turkish Conflict.
As CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports, that conflict 80
years ago claimed more than one million Armenian lives.
It was only after a personal appeal from then-President Clinton
that Speaker Hastert agreed to block a Congressional vote on the
resolution. Armenian-Americans have long wanted the U.S. government
to declare that Turkey was guilty of genocide in 1915, when more than
one million Armenians died.
“My own family were driven into the Syrian desert, where almost
everybody perished. My father and his brother were among the few
survivors,” said Ann Lucine.
Enter Vanity Fair magazine’s David Rose. In next month’s edition,
he claims that sources told him of secret recordings in which
diplomats from Turkey were heard referring to Hastert as “Denny-Boy”
and allegedly discussed making campaign contributions of $500,000 to
get Hastert to block the genocide resolution.
Hastert was in Japan today, one stop on an official trip to AsIa.
In a statement, a spokesman said: “This story is nonsense. It makes
for great summertime reading. Next thing you know, they’ll blame the
speaker for the Jennifer Aniston/Brad Pitt breakup.”
“I took a quick look at the Vanity Fair article,” Lucine said. “I
would be shocked if the allegations of bribery or criminal actions
were true.”
Like Ann Lucine, Armenian-American activists disagreed strongly
with Speaker Hastert when he withdrew the genocide resolution from
a House floor vote he had promised. But they knew President Clinton
and then-Sec. of State Madeline Albright were pressuring Hastert,
telling him of Turkish threats to close American military bases
vitally needed for the fight against Saddam Hussein in Iraq.