Back in 2003, a young Utah teenager—Elizabeth Smart—was kidnapped and sexually assaulted and held captive for nine months before escaping. In 2003, this was Congressman Dennis Hastert’s statement about that:
"It is important to have a national notification system to help safely recover children kidnapped by child predators," he said. "But it is equally important to stop those predators before they strike, to put repeat child molesters into jail for the rest of their lives and to help law enforcement with the tools they need to get the job done."
[Bold is me counting to the number four, representing how many alleged victims of Hastert we know of]
Last week, Dennis Hastert’s lawyers argued that the damage being done to Dennis Hastert’s reputation—the reputation of being a sexual predator and full of shit—was punishment enough and jail time would be overkill. Dennis Hastert, his lawyers argue, is a man of ill health.
Throw away the key.