The late Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.)–who represented a west suburban Chicago district–the father of the Hyde amendment–and the chairman of the House panel that impeached President Clinton–was the subject of a four-year FBI criminal probe in the 1970s, according to FBI files obtained by Gawker under the Freedom of Information Act. The investigation centered stemmed from Hyde’s days in the Illinois legislature.
Excerpt from Gawker: “The probe, which was authorized at the highest levels of the Justice Department and has not been previously disclosed, involved the use of wiretaps and physical surveillance to nail Hyde for taking kickbacks from mob-affiliated state contractors when he was an Illinois state senator. Though the charges were brought before a grand jury, the Assistant U.S. Attorney overseeing the case abandoned it for lack of evidence in 1976, two years after Hyde was elected to Congress.”