She isn't singing yet...

But I do believe the corporeally advantaged lady is winding down her warm-ups when it comes to Fat Denny:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, is under investigation by the FBI, which is probing corruption in Congress, ABC News reported on Wednesday.

ABC, citing high level Justice Department sources, said information implicating Hastert was developed from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government.

The investigation is alleged to involve a letter that Hastert co-wrote with Tom DeLay, Majority Whip Roy Blunt, and Deputy Whip Eric I. Cantor three years ago. The letter, which ABC News apparently displayed on camera tonight during its evening broadcast, was written to then-Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, urging her to block an off-reservation casino the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians proposed to build near Shreveport, Louisiana. What makes the letter interesting, at least according to a September 2004 article in the Washington Post, are the following facts:

1. None of the signatories to the letter is from Louisiana. DeLay is from Texas, Hastert (obviously) is from Illinois, Blunt is from Missouri, and Cantor hales from Virginia. So why might they be so interested in the doings of a district none of them represents?
2. Further, none of the four Republicans who signed the letter normally gets involved in Indian issues. Again, this begs the question of why they would weigh in on a matter that affected none of their constituents.
3. The Choctaw proposal was alleged at the time, however, to be detrimental to an established casino nearby. That casino was run by the Coushatta Indians, who were clients of convicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
4. Dennis Hastert, according to ThinkProgress, received more than $100,000 in contributions from Abramoff and his tribal clients between 2001 and 2004.

Hastert's office, of course, is denying any knowledge of the investigation, and none of his flacks were available for comment. No surprises there.

Update, 2211: According to the Chicago Tribune, the Justice Department has denied that Hastert is being investigated. Considering the source of the statement and the reputation of the media outlet running it, I'm withholding judgement on this one. Follow me below the fold for some speculation.

IF the facts as alleged are correct, and IF the FBI finds evidence of wrongdoing, I think the Hastert goose might be well and truly cooked this time. It was easy (or easier) to dismiss the Vanity Fair piece last September about contributions from Turkey that may or may not have existed, in return for a flip-flop that may or may not have taken place with regard to a resolution on the Turkish genocide of its Armenian minority during the First World War. It's nothing more than a bunch of talking-head fluff about a bunch of foreigners. A potential quid pro quo on behalf of a known Republican scumbag lobbyist, and another known Republican scumbag politician (who, it is alleged is the only reason that Fat Denny ever got to be speaker in the first place), on the other hand, that's got some legs.

Meanwhile, George W. Bush's approval rating in Illinois has been essentially flat (and never even close to 50%) for the last year, and the public's dissatisfaction with the way Congress has been run under the Republicans (and Hastert) is over 60%, a five-year high. The Harris Poll's numbers are even worse: their May 12 report, based on a telephone survey of 1003 adults conducted May 5-May 8, showed an 80% disapproval of congressional job performance overall, and a 76% negative rating specifically for congressional Republicans. Even among Republicans, disapproval of the way Republicans in Congress are handling things is at 54%, and "at least two-thirds" of conservatives gave a negative rating to the way Republicans were running the Congress. In another Harris Poll from March 2006, Hastert's personal approval rating had risen by four percentage points from the previous November--to a glacial 26%.

The Republican Party in Illinois is badly fragmented right now, and Fat Denny is, in large part (no pun intended) the one thing holding it together. The conservative wing is still licking its wounds from the ass-kicking it received at the hands of Illinois junior senator, Barack Obama, in 2004, when they thought they had enough votes to elect the carpetbagging wingnut Alan Keyes and forced him on the much larger moderate base of the Illinois GOP. The Republican gubernatorial primary this year was a huge and grueling affair, with some seven candidates (many of them from that same tiny wingnut fringe) duking it out among themselves for the right to oppose the Democratic incumbent. The Democrats took back control of Illinois government in 2002, winning both houses of the state legislature and every constitutional office except treasurer--and that office was won by the woman who is now the Republican nominee for governor in 2006, so she's not going to be available.

If Hastert is indicted, or even if the investigation plays out into the fall campaign season, with enough juicy bits of scandal to keep the story on the front pages and at the top of the evening news, I think we could well see a seismic shakeup in Illinois. Voters here have made it pretty clear over the last few years that we're just plain sick and tired of the corruption-as-usual Illinois politics. There seems to be a groundswell of public opinion in favor of another "Throw the bums out!" year anyway, and if Hastert gets linked with dirty money and even dirtier politics, I don't think his national prominence or his liberal largesse with pork-barrel money will be enough to cement his hold on the reins of power.

And if any of my readers are so inclined, I'm sure that Hastert's Democratic opponent this fall, John Laesch, would absolutely not mind if you could see your way clear to sending him some of your spare change. Tell him I sent you.

Comments

[Bryan]

U-Haul will make a bundle on all of the trucks rented to move things out of Congressional offices, and it will be overtime for staffers and their shredders.

I wonder if a lot of people will decide it's a good time to upgrade their hard drives?

The FBI will give this mess to the Federal Prosecutor, who happens to be...hmmm, some guy named Fitzpatrick.

[Bryan]

Mind like a sieve - Patrick Fitzgerald vice Fitzpatrick.