Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) has retained a new defense attorney who is expected to represent him at his Tuesday arraignment on bank-related charges, The National Law Journal reported Monday.
Hastert hired Thomas Green, a white-collar defense attorney with the law firm Sidley Austin, The National Law Journal confirmed with Green and the firm. Green declined to comment to the publication about Hastert’s case, however.
Hastert was indicted last month for allegedly structuring bank withdrawals to evade federal reporting requirements and then allegedly lying to the FBI about those payments. The indictment alleged the payments were hush money doled out to an unidentified individual in order to conceal and compensate for “prior misconduct” on Hastert’s part that occurred years earlier.
A different attorney, Barry Wm. Levine of Hastert’s former law and lobbying firm Dickstein Shapiro, had been listed on a prior filing in the former speaker’s case.
Hastert has yet to comment on the charges against him. He is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday at 2 p.m. CT in U.S. district court in Chicago.