Ex-lawmakers seek mercy for Hastert

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and other former lawmakers were among 41 people to write letters asking for leniency ahead of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s sentencing, according to the Associated Press.

{mosads}”He is a good man that loves the Lord,” Delay wrote of Hastert. “He doesn’t deserve what he is going through.”

Prosecutors allege that the former Speaker was structuring bank payments in order to pay off someone who was threatening to reveal that Hastert had sexually abused boys when he was a high school wrestling coach in Illinois, before his political career.

He pled guilty last year to evading banking laws in attempting to pay his blackmailer $3.5 million.

At lest four other former congressman wrote in support of Hastert: John Doolittle (R-Calif.), David Dreier (R-Calif.) Thomas Ewing (R-Ill.) and Porter Goss (R-Conn.), who is also a former head of the CIA.

The letters were initially sealed, but the judge said he would not consider any of the 60 missives unless they were publicly released. Everyone who wrote a letter in support of Hastert had to give their permission to let the letters go public. Nineteen letters were withdrawn.

Hastert is scheduled for sentencing Wednesday.