Prosecutors announced on Thursday that former House Speaker Dennis Hastert was charged with crimes related to bank-transaction reporting and with lying to the FBI. It’s an ignominious turn in the politician’s story, but not his first brush with scandal. In fact, it was a scandal—one of a very different sort, involving a different person, but a scandal nonetheless—that got him into the Speaker’s seat in the first place. Hastert officially became speaker at the beginning of 1999, following the tenure of Newt Gingrich.