6 Shocking Presidential Scandals That Rocked the White House

Politically, it might have been easier if Jackson had followed his cabinet’s lead and distanced himself from Eaton. Instead, he sided with the Eatons – perhaps because he himself was hurt by accusations that he had lived for a time in sin with his late wife Rachel (the couple married bigamously, mistakenly believing that Rachel’s divorce from her first husband was error. was provided).

As a result, Jackson, a man who had risen to power as an energetic general in the War of 1812 against the British, found himself mired in political battle. The Petticoat Affair continued for 30 months until Jackson eventually found an opportunity to demand the resignation of most of his ineffective and fractious cabinet.

Whiskey ring (1875–76)

Ulysses S Grant

By 1875, Ulysses S. Grant, the commanding general who led the Union Army to victory in American Civil Warwas president for six years. Although he personally worked diligently to promote reform, he led an administration that became synonymous with meanness, backroom deals, and corruption.

The Whiskey Ring was one of the worst scandals to befall Grant. The story first appeared in the news in May 1875 after Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow realized that millions of dollars in tax revenue from whiskey distillers had never reached the government coffers.

Instead, in a conspiracy centered in St. Louis and involving prominent Republican politicians, government agents and those in the liquor industry, the money was stolen. At the center of the crime was General John McDonald, the man whom Grant had appointed Missouri county tax collector in 1869.

Bristow and Grant’s attorney general, Edwards Pierrepont, began prosecuting the conspirators. Not only did they secure 110 convictions, but they also recovered $3 million in stolen tax revenue.

Unfortunately for Grant, he received no political dividends from the work of his officials; his personal secretary, Orville E. Babcock, was among those accused. Although Babcock was found not guilty, Grant’s testimony on behalf of his friend was seen by many as a disgrace.

For many years, historians rated Grant as a bad president, but in recent years his contributions have been re-evaluated. For all his faults, Grant was a fundamentally honest man who ruled in a post-conflict era of enormous upheaval.

Tea Dome scandal (1921–23)

Warren G. Harding

In the age of mechanization, the military needs fuel. Accordingly, when William Taft declared a number of oil-producing regions naval reserves during his presidency (1909–13), it must have seemed like a reasonable idea. But as subsequent events showed, this decision left room for corruption.

The Teapot Dome scandal began in 1921 when President Warren G. Harding issued an executive order transferring control of three oil fields, including the Teapot Dome field in Wyoming, from the Department of the Navy to the Department of the Interior. The order was carried out in 1922 by order of Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall.

At the time, it was legal to lease drilling rights without competitive bidding, and in late 1922, Fall leased the Teapot Dome oil rights to industrialist Harry F. Sinclair of Mammoth Oil. Fall similarly leased the Elk Hills and Buena Vista reserves to another magnate, Edward L. Doheny.

Not only were the leases very profitable for the oil workers, but Fall personally benefited from the deals, amounts equivalent to millions of dollars today. But Fall was not cunning enough in spending bribes, and his improved financial position soon attracted suspicion.

A slow-burning scandal followed, resulting in Fall being found guilty of accepting bribes in 1929 and sentenced to a year in prison. Congress has granted itself the right to review the tax records of any US citizen, regardless of their position. Although Fall was to blame, the Teapot Dome scandal continues to tarnish the reputation of Harding, who died in office in 1923.

Watergate (1972–74)

Richard Nixon

The scandal that brought down Richard Nixon (and gave the suffix to each subsequent scandal) began on June 17, 1972 with a break-in Watergate Office building in Washington. At a time when campaigning for the presidential election was in full swing, the building housed the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.

From this small beginning, things gradually went downhill. Five men were detained at Watergate. The money found on them was linked to the Committee to Re-Elect the President – CRP, an acronym that morphed into CREEP as news spread about slush funds and illegal wiretapping targeting the Democrats – Nixon’s fundraising organization.

Immediately after the hack, White House officials tried to cover up what happened. This was at least in part because they were alarmed by the connections between the five detainees and the White House Plumbers, a secret special investigations unit tasked with investigating and preventing the leak of classified information but which became known as the Nixon Plumbers. “fixers”.

How much advance knowledge Nixon had of the hack remains unclear, not least because of reports Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, he eventually found himself under almost unbearable pressure. Nixon’s habit of recording telephone conversations and meetings also did not help his case.

In 1974, the so-called “Smoking Gun” tape was released, which proved that Nixon and his chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discussed the cover-up as early as June 23, 1972.

Facing impeachment, “Tricky Dicky” resigned in August 1974. His successor, Gerald Ford, pardoned Nixon, but the former president’s reputation was ruined forever.

Iran-Contra affair (1985–87)

Ronald Reagan

The idea that Ronald Regan’s administration secretly facilitated arms sales to Iran between 1981 and 1986 is counterintuitive, to say the least. And yet, despite the arms embargo and the two countries’ habitually belligerent stance toward each other, the United States supplied Iran with more than 2,000 missiles without Congress’ knowledge—moreover, while Iran was at war with its neighbor, Iraq. .

There were two different lines in this story. The first focuses on the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90). In 1982, as the conflict raged, the Islamist group Hezbollah began taking hostages, including Americans, in Lebanon. Hezbollah had strong ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and the administration hoped that in exchange for weapons, Iran would help secure the release of American hostages.

What to do with the collected money? Vietnam veteran Oliver North, a National Security Council official, concocted a cunning ploy to transfer proceeds from sales to the Contras, counter-revolutionaries opposed to the ruling—and Soviet-backed—Sandinistas in Nicaragua. From the administration’s perspective, the ploy was necessary because Congress had decided in 1982 to limit American aid to the Contras, a group notorious for its human rights atrocities.

In November 1986, a Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa uncovered American arms sales to Iran, and under political pressure, Reagan formed the Tower Commission to investigate what happened. Although special counsel Lawrence Walsh’s final 1993 report found no direct evidence that Reagan knew about aid going to the Contras, he emphasized how Cold War the warrior “created the conditions that made possible the crimes committed by others.”

Clinton-Lewinsky affair (1998–99)

Bill Clinton

In such a powerful field, it remains one of the most disgraceful remarks ever made by an American president. On January 26, 1998, speaking at a press conference, Bill Clinton said: “I did not have a sexual relationship with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” There was just one problem: between 1995 and 1997, the president apparently had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, an intern.

The scandal that marred the latter part of Clinton’s second term stemmed in part from another incident. In January 1998, government employee Linda Tripp learned that Lewinsky had testified under oath in the Paula Jones case, in which Clinton was sued for sexual harassment (the case was settled in November 1998), and had denied having a physical relationship with Clinton. Tripp, Lewinsky’s confidant and colleague, secretly recorded conversations that contradicted this denial.

Tripp turned over the tapes to Ken Starr and then investigated Clinton on other matters, such as the Whitewater dispute, centered on real estate investments made by the Clintons. With such salacious details as a semen-stained dress, the Republican-dominated House of Representatives impeached Clinton in December 1998. He was charged with “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

A Senate trial followed, but a two-thirds majority was required to convict and remove Clinton from office. He lived to complete his presidential term, although Vice President Al Gore blamed it on his own defeat in the 2000 presidential election partly about what happened. In 2018, Monica Lewinsky wrote an essay for the magazine Vanity Fair in which she looked back. As an older woman, she said, she considered the affair a “gross abuse of power” on Clinton’s part.