Former US House speaker Dennis Hastert dies at 84
Dennis Hastert, the longest-serving Republican House speaker, died of natural causes at his Illinois home on Saturday while under hospice care, the Kendall County coroner said Monday.
Dennis Hastert, whose record as the longest-serving Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives was later eclipsed by a prison sentence, has died at the age of 84.
Hastert died on Saturday at his home in Kendall County, Illinois, while under hospice care, county coroner Jacquie Purcell said in a statement on Monday, 5 October 2026. The cause was natural causes. The coroner’s office said it did not assume jurisdiction and released the case to his attending hospice physician.
Hastert served as speaker from 1999 to 2007, presiding over the House during the Senate’s impeachment trial of Bill Clinton, the 11 September 2001 attacks, and the 2001 anthrax mailings. An obscure Illinois congressman when Republicans elected him to succeed Newt Gingrich, he went on to shepherd George W. Bush’s legislative agenda, including sweeping tax cuts and a major Medicare prescription-drug expansion.
His legacy collapsed in 2015 when he was indicted for evading banking rules to conceal hush-money payments. Prosecutors later revealed the payments were tied to the sexual abuse of teenage boys on his high-school wrestling team in Yorkville, Illinois. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced in April 2016, becoming the highest-ranking American politician ever sent to prison.
He retired from Congress in November 2007 and is survived by his wife, Jean Kahl, and two sons.
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