BREAKING: K.A. PAUL SPEAKS

Investigative mag Mother Jones scores a lengthy chat with questionable evangelist and Dennis Hastert confidante K.A. Paul, winning new details of his meeting yesterday with the embattled speaker of the House.

It turns out Paul’s meeting was for 7 a.m., but he showed up a half-hour late, says MoJo:

The two men withdrew into a private room where, Paul says, he launched into a sermon about what Hastert should do. Paul told Mother Jones that he cited politicians whose reputations suffered when they resisted stepping down: Donald Rumsfeld, Tom DeLay, Bill Clinton. “I said ‘If you don’t do that, the Republicans will lose control of the Congress, you will no longer be Speaker in 30 days, and at the same time they will all blame you because of Foley scandal. You want that for you? You want that to be your life legacy after accomplish so many good things?’ So that’s what convinced him.”

“God gave me this position that I don’t deserve,” Paul says Hastert told him. “For the good of the people, I will do it.”

The Chicago Sun-Times today reported Hastert was “duped” into meeting with Paul. Hastert’s office maintains he is not stepping down.

Bonus: Paul tells MoJo he knew al-Qaeda’s Abu Musab al-Zarqawi “when he was nobody.” Dubbed the “spiritual adviser to the scum of the Earth,” Paul says he has counseled such men as Saddam Hussein, Muammar al-Khaddafi, Slobodan Milosevic, Liberia’s Charles Taylor, and former House majority leader Tom DeLay.