Speaker Hastert connected to the Abramoff scandal.

The Huffington Post reports on a story from the Cleveland Plain Dealer that states that in June 2003 House Speaker Dennis Hastert sent a letter to to Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton urging asking that she act in favor of clients of Jack Abramoff. The letter was apparently written by Jack Abramoff who is a lobbyist currently being investigated for illegally selling government influence to his clients in connection with his friend, at that time Majoprity Leader Tom DeLay. Tom DeLay and current Majority Leader Roy Blunt both cosigned the letter.

The letter endorsed a view of gambling law that would block the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians from opening a casino nearby one owned by the Coushattas, an Abramoff client.

According to FEC reports, since 1999 Hastert has taken $49,000 from American Indian tribes while they were Jack Abramoff's clients. On June 3, 2003, Hasteret held a fundraiser at Signatures, a Washington restaurant owned by Abramoff. He did not pay for the space until more than two years later, when Business Week began an in-depth investigation into use of Signatures.

This is the kind of influence the Republican Congressional Leadership has been selling to finance their election campaigns.