Hastert the real-estate speculator

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert may have done some bad stuff with a boy a long time ago. What is crystal clear, however, is that his political influence helped enrich him in huge land deals in Illinois even as he helped push into law some of the most fiscally irresponsible legislation in U.S. history. Like the Clintons and many others, he used  his power in Washington to make a killing as the capital has slid ever deeper into corruption during the last few decades.