5 of the Most Outrageous Political Scandals of the Past 30 Years

Politics, News, Relationships

Political scandals are as old as politicians, and aren’t limited to heads of state. Call it arrogance, greed, self-importance, or weakness, some elected officials seem unable to resist the notion that they are above the law and won’t suffer the consequences of their actions. Over and over, their misdeeds are discovered, they deny wrongdoing, and their careers and often personal lives collapse as the truth comes out. Some politicians can ride out the storm with charisma and popularity; but others have seen promising careers go down the drain.

From extramarital affairs to bribery to misuse of power, here are some of the most outrageous political scandals in the history of the United States. Will this election year add even more names to the list?

Gary Hart

In the spring of 1987, U.S. Senator Gary Hart was an early front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination despite rumors of his philandering ways. When reporters for the Washington Post broke the story of Hart’s extramarital affair with Donna Rice in May, it changed the political game forever. Prior to this, politicians’ personal lives were generally considered off-limits; the truth of John F. Kennedy’s affairs weren’t discovered until a decade after his assassination.

When Hart was first questioned, he went into damage control mode and actually invited the press to follow him. Unfortunately for him, they did. Gary Hart quit the presidential race on May 8, 1987, several days after Donna Rice told reporters she’d vacationed with the senator aboard a boat called Monkey Business the month before. Several weeks later, the National Enquirer published the infamous photo of Hart wearing a “Monkey Business” crew t-shirt, with Rice sitting on his lap.

The Keating Five

In 1989, when the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association collapsed, its chairman, Charles H. Keating Jr., accused the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and its former head Edwin J. Gray of conspiring against him. Gray later testified that five senators had asked him to back off from investigating Keating, on the grounds that the Savings and Loan was a major employer in their respective states.

These senators became known as the Keating Five after it was discovered they had, in total, received more than a million bucks in campaign contributions directly from Keating. While a Senate Ethics Committee investigation claimed that all five acted improperly, all five senators maintained there was nothing unethical about their behavior. Keating himself was convicted on 73 counts of fraud in 1993 and served 4 years in prison.

The Keating Five included Alan Cranston of California, Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, John Glenn of Ohio, Donald Riegle of Michigan, and John McCain of Arizona–yes, that John McCain, 2008 Republican candidate for president. Cranston, DeConcini, and Riegle all declined to run for reelection after the 1991 Ethics Committee investigation criticized them for “questionable conduct.” John Glenn was reelected in 1992 and retired in 1999; McCain continues to serve as senator after successful reelection bids in 1992, 1998, 2004, and 2010.

Mark Foley

A Republican from Florida, Mark Foley resigned in disgrace in 2006, after a decade in the U.S. House of Representatives. ABC News asked Foley about suggestive and sexually explicit emails he had sent teenage congressional pages. It turned out that Foley’s activities were fairly common knowledge in the House and other Congressmen had tried to get him to rein it in for a while. On September 29, 2006, a day after the story broke in the national press, Foley resigned.

Mark Sanford

South Carolina governor Mark Sanford might find his last legacy to be the creation of a whole new euphemism for extramarital sex. Late-night comedians found his claim in 2009 following a brief disappearance to be “hiking the Appalachian trail” highly entertaining; the Columbia, S.C. newspaper discovered he’d actually used public money to fund trips to South America to see his Argentinian mistress. While Sanford’s marriage and political career fell apart in the wake of the scandal, his love affair is apparently still going strong.

Rod Blagojevich

In 2008, Rod Blagojevich was in his second term as Illinois governor when he was arrested on federal corruption charges after trying to auction off Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. He was also charged with bribery, conspiracy, and mail fraud. He was impeached in January 2009 by the Illinois House of Representatives and summarily removed from office.

The former governor appeared on late-night talk shows, wrote an autobiography, and was a contestant on Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” reality show. Fun and games are about to stop, however; in June of 2011, Blagojevich was found guilty on 17 of 20 charges in the second of two trials, the first having ended in a mistrial. He was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison and will have to serve at least 12 years of that, beginning in March of 2012.