But the complaint, filed by Illinois businessman J.David John, one of Hastert's business partners from that time period, alleged that he misused the taxpayer allowance on lobbying work, in violation of the Federal False Claims Act.
Under the plans, released quietly yesterday alongside major announcements on Heathrow and Equitable Life, MPs' expenses will be exempted from the Freedom of Information Act – thus preventing the public from seeking a full breakdown of legislators' taxpayer-funded allowances.
News of the claim is a new embarrassment to Smith who last month faced criticism for claiming taxpayer-funded allowances for her family home while living with her sister in London.
But very few Americans know that, in Orwellian fashion, the royal family is "paying" for the £30m wedding out of its taxpayer-provided allowance, with taxpayers directly footing the bill for the extra policing and road closures, which will total more than £5m.
Under the law, Hastert, like all House speakers, was granted what is essentially a taxpayer-funded allowance to settle and conclude his affairs.
It was a tangled affair, but in essence he was accused of using parliamentary allowances, taxpayer's cash, to pay the salaries of staff, again including his son, in his constituency office, knowing that they were really working for Labour's electoral campaign.
So this is what we taxpayers pay peers allowances of up to £300 a day for, is it?
For a basic-rate taxpayer to hit their allowance limit they would need a £40,000 savings pot earning 2.5%, according to Andrew Hagger, financial expert at MoneyComms.
And Mr Maude said that any cap on constituency spending must "not be set at a level which gives an unfair advantage to sitting MPs, who now have tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money in parliamentary allowances to spend in their constituencies".
A group of congressional Democrats and organizations like Families USA that support Obamacare had urged her to make these allowances for taxpayers in that situation.
