Dennis Hastert, the nation’s longest-serving Republican House speaker, has died at age 84.
Hastert, who was speaker from 1999 until 2007, died on Saturday, October 3, 2026, of natural causes at his home in Plano, Illinois, while receiving hospice care, according to Kendall County Coroner Jacquie Purcell.
Hastert became speaker in 1999 after Newt Gingrich stepped down and Rep. Bob Livingston withdrew over an affair. He presided over the House during the Senate impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton and during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. He helped steer President George W. Bush’s legislative agenda into law, including massive tax cuts and a major expansion of prescription drug benefits under Medicare.
His political legacy was later destroyed after allegations that he molested high school athletes when he was a teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School from 1965 to 1981.
In 2015, Hastert was accused of evading banking regulations as part of a plan to pay $3.5 million in hush money to conceal prior misconduct. Prosecutors later said the misconduct involved the sexual abuse of at least four teenage boys.
He was never charged with a sex crime because the statute of limitations had expired, but pleaded guilty to illegally structuring bank withdrawals and lying to the FBI. In 2016, he was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison, becoming one of the highest-ranking American politicians ever ordered to prison. U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin called him a “serial child molester” at sentencing.
He served 13 months at a federal medical prison in Minnesota and was released in July 2017.
