10 Notorious Political Scandals In American History

10 Notorious Political Scandals in American History

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at 10 Notorious Political Scandals in American History.

For this list, we’ll be considering the most shocking and far-reaching controversies that have rocked the world of American politics.

Which of these scandals do you think is the most egregious? Let us know in the comments.

The Pentagon Papers

The Pentagon Papers refers to a top-secret government report on America’s political and military involvement in the Vietnam War. The study, which was carried out at the behest of then-Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, was leaked to the New York Times in 1971 by a military analyst named Daniel Ellsberg. The papers apparently showed that multiple presidential administrations, from Harry Truman’s to Lyndon B. Johnson’s, had misled Congress and the American public on the exact scale of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. This leak infuriated then-President Nixon, whose attempt to block the publication of the documents was superseded by a landmark Supreme Court decision. This would set in motion the chain of events that led to the infamous Watergate scandal. More on that later.

The Crédit Mobilier Scandal

In the thick of the 1872 re-election campaign of Ulysses S. Grant, a major scandal erupted that involved several politicians and executives of the Union Pacific Railroad. After being contracted by the U.S. government to construct a portion of the First Transcontinental Railroad, Thomas C. Durant, the vice president of Union Pacific, devised a cunning scam. He created the fake construction company, Crédit Mobilier of America, with which he billed the government $94 million for a project that cost only $50 million. Most of the excess cash was shared among the company executives, while some of it was used to bribe multiple politicians, including then-Vice President Schuyler Colfax. Although the scandal destroyed the reputations of many involved, no criminal charges were officially filed.

The Whiskey Ring Scandal

Fending off scandals was apparently a normal day at the Ulysses S. Grant White House. During the president’s second administration, a ring of corruption was exposed by the Secretary of Treasury, Benjamin Bristow. Operating mostly in St. Louis, Missouri, The Whiskey Ring was organized in 1871 by Republican operatives claiming to raise money for their party candidates. In actuality, whiskey distillers in the group bribed federal agents to evade government taxes and keep huge profits for themselves. The scandal implicated John McDonald, a Treasury Department official appointed by Grant himself, and Grant’s own private secretary Orville Babcock. McDonald was convicted and sentenced to prison, while Babcock was acquitted after Grant testified to his innocence.

The Keating Five

Long before the notorious “How to Get Away with Murder” quintet, the original Keating Five generated a huge controversy. In 1989, news broke that U.S. senators - Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, John Glenn, Donald Riegle Jr., and John McCain - had improperly interfered in a federal investigation of Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The financial institution was being probed when its chairman, Charles Keating Jr., who had made campaign contributions to all five senators, had them intervene on his behalf. The federal agency backed off initially, but after Lincoln went under in 1989 and needed over $3 billion in bailouts, the scandal came to light. Following a chaotic investigation, only one of the five senators was formally reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee.

The Teapot Dome Scandal

After President Warren G. Harding took office in 1921, he appointed several of his close friends and associates to high-ranking positions. This group later became known as the Ohio Gang, one of whom was Harding’s Interior Secretary Albert Fall. In 1922, Harding transferred control of three Naval oil fields to the Department of Interior. Two of these reserves were located in California and the third in Teapot Dome, Wyoming. This move allowed Fall to lease the drilling rights for these fields to private oil companies without open bidding, in exchange for large bribes. Although the scandal first broke before Harding’s death in August 1923, Fall’s eventual conviction and one-year imprisonment wouldn’t happen until years later.

Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky Affair

When it comes to political sex scandals in America, there is arguably none quite as infamous as that involving then-President Bill Clinton and former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The two had maintained a clandestine relationship between 1995 and 1997. While under federal investigation for another controversy, the details of Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky found their way into the hands of the independent counsel, Ken Starr. To make matters worse, both Clinton and Lewinsky denied the relationship under oath, which paved the way for perjury charges to be brought against the president. In December 1998, Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives, but ended up serving his full term after eventually being acquitted by the Senate.

NSA Surveillance Controversy

Edward Snowden will go down as one of the most prominent whistleblowers in U.S. history. In 2013, Snowden, who was working as a contractor for the NSA at the time, leaked highly classified documents to notable publications such as The Guardian and The Washington Post. These documents revealed that the NSA, in tandem with telecommunications companies, had carried out widespread surveillance on American citizens and some high-profile foreign nationals. The ensuing scandal caused increased public distrust in government agencies, and in 2020, the program was ruled “illegal and possibly unconstitutional” by a federal court in the U.S. Snowden first fled the country to Hong Kong before eventually settling in Russia, where he was granted citizenship in 2022.

Donald Trump’s Involvement in the January 6th Insurrection

After Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 Presidential Election, Donald Trump refused to concede, instead alleging widespread voter fraud without any evidence to prove it. On January 6th, 2021, while Congress convened in the U.S. Capitol to certify the electoral results, Trump spoke to a rally of his supporters a few miles away. After his speech, in which he implored the crowd to “fight like hell” to save their country, thousands stormed the Capitol building. Trump’s involvement in the attack led to him getting impeached for the second time by the House of Representatives. Following his exit from office, Trump held on to several classified documents, most of which were recovered during the widely reported FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago residence.

The Iran-Contra Affair

In 1986, during his second term in office, the Ronald Reagan administration was rocked by a political scandal that threatened his presidency. Dubbed the “Iran-Contra affair,” the issue revolved around a secret sale of weapons to Iran in exchange for the freedom of seven American hostages held in Lebanon. This was illegal as the Middle Eastern nation had been placed under an arms embargo. In addition, the administration officials who facilitated the sale then used part of the profits to fund the Nicaraguan anti-communist Contras. This was in direct violation of the Boland Amendment, which prohibited American aid to the group. Although Reagan himself was cleared of any wrongdoing, several of his senior officials were indicted and later found guilty.

Watergate

The Watergate scandal has largely defined scandals as we know them today. On June 17th, 1972, five burglars were arrested after breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Complex. They were soon connected to the Nixon administration and his 1972 re-election campaign. While it’s still unknown if Nixon was aware of the break-in beforehand, he proceeded to do everything possible to cover it up. This constituted an abuse of power and deliberate obstruction of justice. After being incriminated by his own taped recordings of Oval Office conversations, the House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment. Facing almost certain removal from office, Nixon resigned on August 9th, 1974, becoming the first U.S. president to ever do so.