Talk:List of federal political scandals in the United States/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Enron scandal vs Clinton scandal

Technically this is a corporate scandal but due to close ties to the Republican party it should be included. I compare it to the number of private corporate scandals Republicans tied to Bill Clinton, including Whitewater, Rose Law Firm, Norman Hsu and Charlie Trie. richrakh````

The only problem is that many Enron execs were Democrats and their footprint on the whole climate change related fiasco is a progressive one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Koner1958 (talk • contribs) 17:10, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Enron was a corporate scandal, period. It had nothing to do with any presidential administration, except in a cursory sense (Lay was described as a Bush "ally" and was "considered" for a cabinet post). In fact, the prosecution commenced DURING the Bush administration. It was important, but it does not belong on this list. HappyJake (talk) 10:31, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Reagan/Bush Controversies

Americus55. This is getting silly. Political scandals etc, is supposed to be a one or two line list. Briefly, it tells WHO, WHAT and WHEN. But it does NOT go into WHY, because it takes too long. Every citation includes a name and link to a wikipedia article which tells the complete story of that person such as Gerald Ford and gives the history, background, context and result of that scandal, whatever it might be. In the case of Reagan and Bush someone has written a wikipedia NPOV article solely about those controversies. They deserve to be linked to this article to allow a more thorough discussion of those scandals. Sometimes there is a very good reason for them that cannot be explained in 1 or 2 sentences. You seem to think we are picking on Reagan and Bush. There are lots of other presidents with controversies. Kennedy for one, Clinton for another. If you can find, or make, an article entitled Clinton Controversies, or Carter Controversies, it too should be linked to this one. richrakh````

Eric Massa, Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters

Should we include these for the Obama administration? Or, have they been left off at this time because they are ongoing?132.3.41.68 (talk) 20:30, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Charlie Rangel is already in the article. He's listed for 2008, under W. Bush Administration, Legislative section. But the bigger issue is should they be included at all? As the lead section states,

"To keep the article a manageable size, Senators and Congressmen who are rebuked, admonished, condemned, suspended, found in contempt, found to have acted improperly, used poor judgement or were reprimanded by their legislatures are not included unless the scandal is exceptional or leads to expulsion."

Also, see the discussion above with PCsmith who makes the same point. Due to that discussion I added a link to List of United States senators expelled or censured and List of United States Representatives expelled, censured, or reprimanded. Even after all the news about Rangel I still don't understand the system. It seems to me the leading party always has one more vote than the other and I STILL don't understand the rational they use for making them. Besides, this article is way too long to begin with. I'd prefer to see all such entries taken out rather than added in, unless of course, they were actually convicted of something in a court of law. richrakh````

Unreferenced

There are a lot of unreferenced additions to this. I have removed some but there are many more. They either need to come out or be referenced. This article falls under BLP. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 17:54, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Keep your shirt on. I'm going as fast as I can. Did it even occur to you to look some of these up rather than simply delete them? richrakh````

Would you please sign your posts correctly? - Burpelson AFB ✈ 14:52, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Answer the question. Richrakh (talk) 16:35, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

No. The Biographies of Living Persons policy is clear in that negative or potentially negative information that is unreferenced or poorly referenced must be removed immediately. It cannot be added until a reference has been provided. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 17:02, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Figures. Your kind never does. After all, the rules are clear. Richrakh (talk) 04:30, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

"My kind" never does what? If you mean violate the BLP policy, then you're right. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:14, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I have removed the material again. This garbage cannot be present in a Wikipedia article without reliable sourcing. Tarc (talk) 23:41, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

What is your justification for deletion of information on dead people? Is BLP going to be extended to the dead to appease those editors who want to delete everything unpleasant about people as POV? Hmains (talk) 00:09, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

That would fall under either the "unsourced idiocy" or "Wikipedia is not TMZ" rationales. If you have a claim to make that a person was involved in a scandal, then source it. I'm not at the moment about to trawl through 13k of shit to pick out "oh, he's dead so its ok" as opposed to "he's alive, keep it out". I'd rather err on the side of caution and axe all of the unsourced material, then re-added it when or of possible. Tarc (talk) 00:18, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Can you discuss things without resorting to bad language? It is not helpful and indicates a point of view not trying to reach consensus or common knowledge. Hmains (talk) 00:26, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

No, I cannot. The words were not directed at you or any other person, they were directed at the overall state of what has been tacked onto this article for pretty much its entire existence; namely, shit. Address what I said rather than fishing for red herrings, please. Tarc (talk) 03:01, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

It is not a red herring. It shows your disregard of other editors and your belief that you only have the right answer and can treat others thoughts as just so much of any bad language you want to use. You should get control of yourself and make your points in a polite manner, using acceptable language as found in the MOS and other WP locations, which I happen to agree with Hmains (talk) 00:51, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

When you are actually able to discuss the subject matter...you do recall that that was unsourced BLP information, right?...rather than me, do let me know. Thanks. Tarc (talk) 01:03, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the BLP information, I agree with you after reading necessary WP material. Thanks Hmains (talk) 22:11, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

split

I suggest the article be split between Federal and state items. In this way, they article can be more carefully categorized into Federal vs state parent parent cats. Each remaining article will also be shorter and easier to edit/read. Your thoughts? Hmains (talk) 04:18, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Richrakh (talk) 06:38, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I tried to split off the state items to make a new page, but was blocked when I tried to add references. Guess we'll have to wait. Richrakh (talk) 21:22, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Now to the names of the resulting split articles (which can always be changed later). I suggest List of federal political scandals in the United States and List of state and local political scandals in the United States. WHY: these are lists and lists get named 'list'; federal is the term used at the US national level; state and local will cover the sub-national level inclusively; 'in' to indicate location, not the 'of' indicating ownership or responsibility. Hmains (talk) 23:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Samuel B. Kent

The article has him appointed to the federal judiciary in 1990 by George W. Bush. That's clearly impossible since GWB wasn't president until 2000. Can we get clarification on his appointment date, and if it is 1990, change the president to GHWB?99.137.49.21 (talk) 14:01, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Done.Richrakh (talk) 22:48, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Scott W. Rothstein

Other than the lead, where is Rothstein listed? Should he be here at all? Aside from a golf fundraiser for Jeb Bush, what else did he do? Maybe at state level instead of here? Birdshot9 (talk) 21:59, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Petters, Rothstein and Stanford are not politicians, they are not connected to federal level politicians and are not as famous as Bernie Madoff. Richrakh (talk) 05:42, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

presidential terms

Changing terms only makes sense in recent years when the term ends in January. It does not make so much sense in past years when the terms ended in March--1/4 of the year. Hmains (talk) 03:22, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

But to be consistant, I'd say the modern way should be used.Logjam42 (talk) 20:48, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

• I would think that historical correctness is more important than something as transitory as WP consistency. Hmains (talk) 00:12, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Scandals in the pipeline?

I'm not sure they're developed enough to go here for certain yet, but there is probably a case for including things like the Solyndra loans and the USDOJ's losing track of guns in Operation Fast and Furious. We'll have to see how they develop, but the latter at least has already seen subpoenas, so I think it's close to meriting inclusion. Wikipedia now has a page describing the latter as the ATF gunwalking scandal, so at some point it should be considered for addition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.243.142 (talk) 17:56, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

No indictments yet, no pointing fingers yet, lets see what happens.Logjam42 (talk) 17:56, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Those are Obama scandals and this is Wikipedia. They will cover it up as best they can. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Koner1958 (talk • contribs) 17:12, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

You mean like Nixon and the Watergate coverup, Reagan and the Iran-Contra coverup or Bush and the Email/Lawyergate/CIA/WMD coverups? Richrakh (talk) 18:56, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

If you're really looking for democrats to fry, why not try the states? There are lots there. Sitsat (talk) 21:00, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

How about New Jersey?Slmslr27 (talk) 21:04, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Should there be something in here about the Benghazi cover-up as well? Especially in light of the recently released Ben Rhodes' "smoking-gun" email.74.219.126.74 (talk) 15:26, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

John Ensign (and other sex scandals)

I'm not sure what the guidelines are on these, but it seems to me John Ensign doesn't belong here?

• John Ensign (R-NV) the religious conservative resigned his Senate seat on May 3, 2011 before the Senate Ethics Committee could examine possible fiscal violations in connection with his extramarital affair with Cynthia Hampton. (2011) (see federal sex scandals)

Note that it is already listed at List of federal political sex scandals in the United States, and if we mean for this article to be inclusive of all subsets, that'd require many a scandal from the sex scandals list to be added over here as well. Any thoughts before I remove this entry? ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 18:48, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Ensign is here because of his Financial Violations. He is in sex scandals because of his Mistress. Richrakh (talk) 21:15, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

I didn't read that carefully enough, thanks. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 23:47, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Obama Scandals ?

Solyndra - We usually don't include developing scandals or those still under investigation. Has there been an accuof wrong doing or an indictment? And if we add this, don't we also have to add Black Water, Haliburton, Lockheed and Enron? The government loans money to every corp under the sun, including the big banks and auto makers. If one of them goes under or gives contributions do we include all of them too?

Solyndra's now regularly hitting the major newspapers (I think it was page A4 in the Washington Post), but let's see where it goes. I don't think we'll see indictments during this administration simply because federal prosecutors have little incentive to investigate their bosses unless the press REALLY forces them to, but it wouldn't surprise me if this starts to become a major issue between August and October - I think the Republicans in the House may be waiting until the time of maximum political effect to unleash the big guns. But it does seem to me like there are potential Hatch Act or general corruption issues here, at least in the Energy Department if not the White House. Still a potential scandal, though; not yet a full-blown one.

• White House is ‘stonewalling’ Solyndra probe. We know from history that cover ups are a sign that something is not right. A cover up alone can be a scandal. Obama Administration is not turning over docs on Solyndra Investigation. Just like Operation Fast and Furious Obama Administration is doing a cover up

Resignation of Shirley Sherrod Shirly Sherrod - She was offered her job back with full apologies. Doesn't sound like much of a scandal to me. Breitbart caused the scandal, but he's not a politician.

Cablegate - As I recall, it was shown that every administration has diplomatic files that are controversial and confidential which threaten to damage international ties IF MADE PUBLIC. How is this the fault of Obama or his administration? The controversy lies with Wikileaks. How did it get them and should it have leaked them.

Maybe. The total failure of data security was pretty scandalous, and some of the revelations were not great for the US (and that's an understatement), but more to do with the Army than politicians. BUT, the fact that embarrassing secrets get leaked does not preclude it being a scandal cf. the Pentagon Papers.

The Jeremiah Wright controversy - again, this is Wright's scandal not Obama's. Do you want to include every mouthing of Pat Roberson and Jimmy Swaggert as well?

Agree. Political issue; you could certainly argue that Obama kept company with the wrong people, but that's a matter of debate rather than a full-blown scandal.

• Bush did not go to Pat Roberson and Jimmy Swaggert church for many years, so how does this compare? Telecine Guy 01:26, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Operation Fast and Furious - the article says this started in 2006 and continued to 2011. If we include this, shouldn't it be placed under the Bush administration? This sounds like a running screw up rather than a finite scandal that can be blamed on any one administration. Richrakh (talk) 21:41, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

My intention was not to blame an administration, but simply to add scandals that have happened during an administration. I didn't realize current events aren't generally added here. Per the intro of the article, "there is no bright line to distinguish 'major' scandals from 'minor' scandals, but rather scandals tend to be defined by the public themselves and the media's desire to feed that particular frenzy." To me that means anything that is majorly covered in the media qualifies as a scandal, true or not. As far as falling under a certain administration headline, I was assuming that events belong to the year where the scandal breaks, not when it actually happened. This seems to be the trend.

It does look like the screw-up was on a larger scale under this administration, though. But, like Solyndra, I'm expecting any major revelations (e.g. proof Holder perjured himself, or similar) to appear around September-October so as to affect the elections more.

I'm not out to diminish Obama. I was trying to add what the media had determined to be a scandal. The only one directly related to Obama is Wright, which definitely meets the criterion of the issue. It's not that Obama did anything wrong, but instead that his connection to Wright was a scandal in itself, widely covered by the media. As for Solyndra: Enron indeed is mentioned, so why not this? There haven't been indictments yet, but there have been subpoenas. OFF is not Obama's fault, but Holder's (hence under DOJ). I don't really care where it's included, and it has nothing to do with which administration it is; nonetheless, it is a scandal by the intro's definition. Shirley Sherrod was a scandal, widely covered, and although the outcome was naught, it warranted a direct call from Obama. As far as Cablegate, the scandal lies in the actual cables released, not in the release event. It was a huge embarrassment for US diplomats around the world.

Once again, to me the categories are not meant to be representative of which administration is to blame, but instead what scandals occurred during which administration. But to outright delete any controversy that happens to be during Obama's tenure (even when unrelated to him) doesn't seem very practical...at what point are we allowed to add these? ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 23:46, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Good question. We're being cautious these days. Lots of editors drift through and plug in the latest headlines regardless, thus the demand for references. And the article was up for deletion for being too long, which is why we can't just include everything. Italic text As to Obama, there just hasn't been much on him...yet. You have to go back to George H. W. Bush to find such a clean administration. I'm also puzzled by the lack of Congressional scandals for the last 3 years. What's going on? Beats me.

With the exception of a couple of minor-league mini-scandals like Rangel and Maxine Waters, and funny-but-non-systematic scandals like Anthony Weiner and the Oregon guy who went crazy (Wu?), I think it comes down to this - it really stops you from needing to break the law if you have a majority in the House and a supermajority in the Senate, and the Presidency, because you can just write the laws to let you do what you want. The big revelations about Congressional insider trading are probably headed for this list if they make the front pages a couple more times, though.

I don't think any of the things you've mentioned so far deserve to be in yet, for the reasons mentioned above. Oh, and Enron is not on the list, Kenneth Lay is. One of the few private citizens on the list because of his close ties to Bush. I've always thought of him as a special case. In Solyandra there just doesn't seem to be any close collusion between [Solyndra loan controversy| Gronet/Harrison]] and Obama, and though Dept of Energy officials are mentioned a lot, no one has mentioned exactly who. I'd wait on this one. But I could be wrong. Anyone else? Richrakh (talk) 02:26, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanations and thoughts. :) ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 03:18, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

There's a lot of axe-grinding and arbitrary prejudices going on in this article. The issue in Solyndra is that internal memos indicate the Obama administration knew that the company's business model was unsustainable, but that taxpayer money was thrown after it anyway in "loans" which would almost certainly never be repaid. Naturally that leads to the question of why such a loser company got such sweet treatment. Operation Fast & Furious started under Bush, but the practices that made it a scandal --- allowing guns to be sold to Mexican cartels without tracking and retrieval, which resulted in the deaths of a U.S. border agent and about 200 Mexican nationals --- were initiated under Obama.

If we don't usually include "developing scandals or those still under investigation," then what are the cases of Alphonso Jackson, Karl Rove, most of the people named in Lawyergate, the Bush e-mail controversy, Lurita Doan, the supposedly "illegal" payments to columnists (if so, who was tried and convicted?) and John Yoo doing here? All these things are either still under investigation, because no one has been charged, or have been investigated and found to amount to nothing. I'm not seeing much consistency here.

The paragraph about the torture memos is an example of controversy, not scandal. If they are to be included, what justification is there for leaving out the hullaballoo about Barack Obama's authorization of the assassination of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki?

The torture memos were internationally considered very embarrassing, and as a student of international law, I can tell you there is little doubt that they revealed serious criminality (which is why President Bush should not leave the United States: what happened was illegal in the US and everywhere else, but only in the US is the political mood clearly opposed to actually prosecuting). Al-Awlaki is different: I would say what happened was entirely legal, assuming that there was no reasonable prospect of preventing him from causing more harm by non-lethal means such as arrest. And drone strikes have never really been considered as outrageous as torture

Why should Kenneth Lay be a special case? His convictions on securities fraud had nothing to do with the Bush administration. He was never a federal official. To paraphrase Rickraikh, "how is that the fault of Bush or his administration? The controversy lies with Lay." If he is to be included, what is the logical distinction between him and Tony Rezko, a close and longtime Obama ally/fundraiser recently convicted of wire and mail fraud? Or Rod Blagojevich on the Rod Blagojevich corruption charges.

Agree. Anti-Bush bias catching all the mini-scandals there while imposing higher thresholds for Obama.

And then there are factual errors. Richard Armitage did not leak Plame's CIA status in "retaliation" of her husband's anti-war activities, and he was not charged with any crime because Patrick Fitzgerald could not find that he had done anything wrong.

I can respect the principle that we not include "scandals" if they don't result in indictment and/or conviction, or are still being investigated and what not, but it's not a principle if it's arbitrarily applied. 69.227.127.10 (talk) 07:51, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I think there are excessive entries under the Bush administration, but I don't have the time or energy to try to clear them out myself. I also think many Bush administration "scandals" are more appropriately controversies (i.e. waterboarding, which continues to be used, is not a scandal, and is adequately covered elsewhere) that don't belong in here. To me, if the widespread media (including worldwide coverage) mentions it as a scandal, indeed it should be included (particularly Solyndra and Operation Fast and Furious). ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 23:57, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, I think one reason why there have been so few bona fide scandals under Obama is that he got a lot of his corrupt bargains with Unions, donors and other Democrat-supporting interest groups done legally or probably-legally, especially through his stimulus, restructuring of the auto makers, and Dodd-Frank. It's not a scandal if Congress, in their wisdom, gives massive payoffs to public sector unions or creates a legally guaranteed right to a bailout for major financial institutions. It's awful public policy, reminiscent of the Jacksonian spoils system, but not a scandal. Having a Congress that lets you do whatever you want legally (as Obama did until the 2010 elections) removes the need to do things in the gray areas, unless you're the Bush administration's lawyers and you just want to ignore Congress based on your desire to set a precedent that the executive can do almost whatever it likes on its own (read The Terror Presidency).

Honest? I don't think so. There are so many entries under Bush because he ran the most corrupt administration in history. True, Richard Armitage and Kenneth Lay are not as big and scandalous as some of the others, but they got a lot of press at the time. There are NO "higher standards for Obama" because there were no "higher standards" for Clinton. Travelgate, Pardongate, Filegate, Wampumgate, Vincent Foster and Whitewater are ALL included and there's not an ounce of spit in any of them. Richrakh (talk) 01:13, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

If I'm reading your sources correctly, the Gun Walking example is not yet a scandal because it still seems to be a case of he said, she said. As the citation states "...contradicting Holder's sworn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in which he said he was unaware of Operation Fast and Furious until April 2011.[9][10] In response, Lamar Smith, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to President Obama, requesting the appointment of an independent special counsel to investigate whether Holder committed perjury by lying to the committee while under oath. [11][12][13]" There are no charges yet. No indictments. Not even even an investigation, just a letter calling for an investigation. And not much press. This is not a scandal yet. Just fishing and finger pointing so far. If we include this we'll have hundreds to include. Richrakh (talk) 20:23, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

How about the secret service prostitution scandal -Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal? It seems like it will result in someone losing their job. 98.221.163.212 (talk) 13:58, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Wrong again.Richrakh (talk) 07:02, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

It takes more than that. Obama and his admin is not directly connected to career people this far down the chain of command. We'll see if the Director of the Secret Service (who has been in office for 3 decades) is affected, which in turn might touch Sec of Tres. Geithner. Birdshot9 (talk) 00:31, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

If all you're going to do is spout off, get a blog. The talk page is about editing, not what you think of democrats. Richrakh (talk) 06:57, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Verbose, wasn't he?Slmslr27 (talk) 20:19, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

If you read the list under Bush, you note that a great many of them are allegations attached to appointees who resigned because of them. Where are Van Jones (an alleged anti-American radical), Tim Geithener (alleged to have cheated on his taxes[$35,000]), and all the other Obama appointees who had similar allegations and issues to the ones listed here for Bush? This isn't a page for expressing or furthering the opinion that Bush was corrupt, or that Obama is corrupt. It's a page for listing major scandals that occured in the administration. If you were to list every questionable appointee for every President, you'd need separate lists for each administration. What is needed here is a clear definition of "scandal." If we are to include questionable appointees, then we should for Clinton and Obama (and Reagan, and Kennedy, and FDR, and Coolidge, and Polk, and Washington) just as we have for Bush. If not, then the ones in Bush's list should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HappyJake (talk • contribs) 10:44, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

2013 Department of Justice investigations of reporters would it be list as a "scandal"? This was a very chilling effect on the press. In 2013, the United States Department of Justice, under Attorney General Eric Holder, came under fire from the media and some members of Congress for subpoenaing phone records from the Associated Press and naming Fox News reporter, James Rosen, a "criminal co-conspirator" under the Espionage Act of 1917 in order to gain access to his personal emails and phone records.

Jonathan Gruber In January 2010, after news came out that Gruber was under a $297,000 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services, while at the same time promoting the Obama administration's health care reform policies, suggests a conflict of interest. Paul Krugman in The New York Times argued that, although Gruber didn't always disclose his HHS connections, the times when he didn't were no big deal.

In November 2014, a series of videos emerged of Gruber speaking about the ACA at different events, from 2010 to 2013, in ways that proved to be controversial; the controversy became known in the press as "Grubergate". Many of the videos show him talking about ways in which he felt the ACA was misleadingly crafted and/or marketed in order to get the bill passed, while in some of the videos he specifically refers to American voters as ill-informed or "stupid." In the first, most widely-publicized video taken at a panel discussion about the ACA at the University of Pennsylvania in October 2013, Gruber said the bill was deliberately written "in a tortured way" to disguise the fact that it creates a system by which "healthy people pay in and sick people get money." He said this obfuscation was needed due to "the stupidity of the American voter" in ensuring the bill's passage. Nancy Pelosi claimed she did not know Gruber, but past video show her praising his work.

Eric Holder Gun Walking - Fast and Furious inquiry scandal

No investigation, no charges, no indictments, no arrests, no resignations, no trial and not much press. How is this a scandal? Just because you want it to be? Richrakh (talk) 07:07, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

• No investigation? Are you real? See: ATF gunwalking scandal, also and New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case. In April 2012, Issa announced that his committee was drafting a Contempt of Congress resolution against Holder in response to the committee being "stonewalled by the Justice Department."[7] Telecine Guy

The gunwalking programs began in 2006. If you would like to investigate Gonzales and W. Bush feel free. Richrakh (talk) 17:15, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

• Eric Holder is found in contempt of Congress over gunwalking - Operation Fast and Furious inquiry. 17 Democrats voted yes on contempt, because the Obama administration’s has stonewall on records. Eric Holder's guns in December of 2010, killed Brian Terry a Border Patrol agent that set off the scandal. As reported by the NY Times on June 28, 2012. If the NY times calls it a scandal, then this a scandal correct? This is the first time an United States Attorney General has been found in Contempt of Congress.Telecine Guy 02:53, 29 June 2012 (UTC}

Attorney's General Alberto Gonzales(R), Edwin Meese(R) and Harry M. Daugherty(R) all resigned under fire and John N. Mitchell(R) not only resigned, but was found guilty of perjury. Richrakh (talk) 02:24, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Contempt of Congress is a serious charge regardless of why.Birdshot9 (talk) 19:20, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I see Eric Holder has been added. Rosierossinie (talk) 20:50, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Citation Length

This is a brief list of scandals which references other articles where the subject is dealt with in depth. Most citations are 10-30 words in length. Longer dissertations should be placed elsewhere. Richrakh (talk) 07:17, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Iraq War

I'm not sure if this a is a scandal or a controversy. But the emphasis should be on the importance of WMDs rather than the Downing Street memo which merely revealed it. Surely it could be worded better. How about this?

• 2003 Invasion of Iraq depended on intelligence that Saddam Hussein was developing "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs) meaning nuclear, chemical and/or biological weapons for offensive use. As revealed by The (British) Downing Street memo "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy" The press called this the 'smoking gun."(2005) Richrakh (talk) 21:54, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Sounds better, thanks! ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 23:47, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Spurious party affiliation

Many of the entries carry "(R)" and "(D)" party designations, these should only be used for elected officials. Most of the unelected names seem to have been designated by default to the party in power while they worked in government. This is spurious at best, party designations are not about when you worked in government, who your friends are or even who you vote for. So John Yoo gets assigned to the Republican Party simply because he worked for Bush. This misunderstands the purpose of party designations. Hairhorn (talk) 03:43, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

what is "R-ID", It means Republican from Idaho.Greenhilllib (talk) 17:08, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Appointments do not receive party designations. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 01:03, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Clinton

Seriously? Only TWO scandals from Clinton's 8 years, after the laundry list of petty stuff from the Bush years? You know, like Mike Espy, Ron Brown, illegal campaign donations, pardons, Webb Hubbell funds, travelgate, Lincoln Bedroom...

I'm not going to research and post them all, but the person/s who did such a thorough job on Bush scandals might want to spend just a few minutes on Clinton. Sajita (talk) 23:20, 13 November 2013 (UTC) ..It's pretty obvious the liberals have the KEYS to this page and want to conveniently SKIP over all obama's legions of bad works. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.176.220.240 (talk) 16:07, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. This list is hopelessly biased. What it needs is an NPOV heading at least.160.94.47.18 (talk) 12:24, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

The bias in this one (this article) is strong. To say the least. Obama's list lacks a number of items. Consider, from most deadly to least: (1) leaving Iraq in the lurch, causing its chaos and control by Islamic State (ISIS), (2) the humanitarian crisis at the Mexican border (also see Bush 43 for this one), (3) that Pr. Obama regularly goes on vacation during deadly crises, so he can be seen golfing, fund-raising, etc., (4) choosing not to enforce federal laws on immigration, (5) Benghazi (i.e., that Amb. Stevens & 3 other Americans were murdered), (6) that $63,000 of taxpayer dollars were diverted from lifesaving programs into Air Force One making an extra round trip to/from Hawaii, so that the FLOTUS could stay an extra (third) week there, (7) choosing not to enforce laws on marijuana.

Then there are scandals that assault the Constitution and civil liberties: (A) "tweaking" the ACA / ObamaCare, (B) previously-mentioned failures to enforce federal laws, (C) the AP phone records scandal, (D) the worst transparency in POTUS history, after promising to be the most transparent, (E) lying to the American people RE Benghazi, (F) failing to close Guantanamo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.90.167.99 (talk) 01:58, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Benghazi Cover-up

Is the Benghazi cover-up still considered ongoing because of the relatively recent release of the Ben Rhodes email? Otherwise, shouldn't it be included? The actual attack was in 2012 - although it still appears they are trying to spin it.74.219.126.74 (talk) 15:33, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

What counts as a "scandal"?

The first scandal under Bush is about a law passed by Congress that he signed. It seems like a huge stretch, and not at all a "neutral point of view," to consider a signing a bill to be a scandal. By that measure, any controversial bill is a scandal, and nearly all bills are controversial. PapayaSF (talk) 03:36, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

easy answer. a scandal is whatever the "neutral" 20 something mostly white male wikipedian authors with a progressive world view decide it is. A wikipedian author can always find a "source" whenever they need to in order to slant their perceptions of reality, namely that conservative figures are more prone to corruption than progressive figures. And if an "unbiased" NYT reporter publishes an article that defends a democrat scandal, the "neutral" wikipedian white male in his 20's with a progressive world view will claim it as a "neutral" source and use it within wikipedia and slap "neutrality" all over it. The game on this site is well known to the entire world, but it is played nonetheless.

It's quite remarkable how biased Wikipedia is throughout because of activist editors. What a shame.Sy9045 (talk) 12:29, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Duplication?

This seems to be duplicated by Corruption in the United States. I would suggest merging the "List.." into that article since that has the less pov title. This coverage is more comprehensive, but as a result of the pov title, it tends to generate a lot more heat than light IMO.

I had hoped that one article was available for state corruption, but there appears to be none dedicated. Student7 (talk) 21:38, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Inslaw = scandal?

The article incorrectly stated that Attorney General William Barr refused to investigate Inslaw's claims. He appointed retired federal judge Nicholas Bua special counsel to investigate the case. Bua found no evidence of improper actions by Justice Department officials. Does this still qualify as a scandal? Rgr09 (talk) 17:56, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

@Rgr09: I'm not convinced it even belongs here. Johnsagent, the material you are adding to the article about Jensen and Brewer being held in contempt is not backed-up by the sources you are citing. -Location (talk) 23:23, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I am also not convinced. The Inslaw article is in a very poor state, I will try to clean it up and make some sense of this story, then return here if more attention seems needed. As far as sources for this story, neither the Corbett report nor History Commons are RS.

Gentlemen, I would rather eat dirt than say this… You’re right. I can find no further conclusive evidence against Brewer, Jenson, Pasciuto or Stanton. As to the scandal:

1. Judge Bason rules the Justice Department used "trickery, fraud and deceit" to drive Inslaw out of business
2. Judge Bason also found clear and convincing evidence that Stanton, had tried to pressure U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee William White to dismiss the Inslaw case.
3. Two years later, U.S. District Judge William B. Bryant, upheld Bason's ruling.
4. U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the findings of both judges on technical grounds
5. In 1988, a US Senate subcommittee found no basis for the charges
6. In 1988, a US House Judiciary Committee, reported that there was "strong evidence" the department "took, converted and stole" Inslaw's computer program
7. Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States found no “credible evidence” that Justice Department officials had conspired to steal Inslaw's software.

I could dismiss Bascon as a poor or misled judge, were it not for Judge Bryant and the House Committee who agreed with him. The very fact that this case was so controversial and convoluted argues that it should be included.Johnsagent (talk) 06:45, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

References

More on Inslaw

I've had a chance to look at the Inslaw case in more detail, and I don't believe that it belongs in this article, or in other related articles about various scandals. The argument seems to be that it remained a "scandal" despite the Bua Report, because not only did bankruptcy court judge Bason rule that the DOJ had "fraudulently" obtained Inslaw's software, Circut court judge William Bryant upheld Bason's ruling on appeal as well. Even though the appellate court vacated Bason's ruling, this was on "technical grounds" and it 'left Bason's finding untouched.' Score: 2 - 0 Inslaw.

In fact, Bryant did not re-try the case; he reviewed Bason's ruling using the "clear error" standard and found none. That's all. This means that when Bua points out flaws with Bason's findings, Bryant's opinion doesn't provide any support for Bason; there's nothing in Bryant for Bua to even discuss.

Unlike Bryant, Bua actually re-examined the entire case, and found many problems with Bason's ruling. This is a much more thorough review than a "clear error" review. Bua concluded that there was no evidence or insufficient evidence for all of Inslaw's claims. In 1994, new staff at DOJ reviewed Bua's report by order of the new AG Janet Reno, who certainly had no interest in defending any DOJ misbehavior under the Republicans, and they agreed with all of Bua's conclusions, also further investigating and rejecting a raftload of new accusations from Inslaw. (Both Bua and the DOJ review also took issue with the House report on a number of points.)

In spite of Bua's report and the DOJ review of it, Congress went ahead and referred the case to the Court of Federal Claims in 1995. After a two and half week trial in March 1997, the COFC hearing officer found that plaintiffs failed to prove:

that INSLAW's claimed enhancements were proprietary;

that DOJ acted unjustifiably in respect of them;

that the Government had less than unlimited rights in enhanced PROMIS as delivered and installed;

that DOJ in any way frustrated or impeded proof of INSLAW's proprietary rights to the claimed enhancements;

that DOJ administered the 1982 Contract in bad faith.

The hearing officer concluded, "Plaintiffs have shown no basis for recovery in law or equity. Any recovery would be a gratuity."

This is a complete legal review and rejection of Inslaw's claims. Inslaw appealed to the COFC Review Panel, who issued a per curiam decision that upheld all these rulings. Congress got the advisory report, decision, and review from the COFC and, not suprisingly, wound up making no compensation to Inslaw.

To me, this fails to pass the duck test for scandals. Rgr09 (talk) 11:11, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

I've removed it. I'm sure there are various conspiracy sources that call it a scandal, but I cannot find reliable sources that do. The closest I found was this bit in a 1991 article in The New York Times: "The case of Inslaw Inc. is either the most overblown event in recent Justice Department annals or a scandal that echoes Watergate. It's long past time to find out which, as the new Attorney General, William Barr, has recognized in a statesmanlike action."[8] Well, we found out it was the former and not the latter. -Location (talk) 23:37, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Why were Trump scandals removed?

I have been trying to keep abreast of the numerous scandals plaguing the Trump administration, but many of them were removed, and it's hard to tell why from the history page. A comment on his giving highly classified info to Russian diplomats says "it is within the presidents power to share information with whom ever [sic] he chooses," and while that was the official explanation and political talking point, it's not true. The president has the power to officially declassify classified information, but that's a legal process, which Trump did not follow. The president does not have the power to blurt out state secrets to agents of a hostile foreign power.

Trump's demands of loyalty from Comey were removed, with the explanation "demanding loyalty is not a crime or even unethical," despite widespread allegations that it amounts to obstruction of justice, and a federal investigation into same. A scandal doesn't not become a scandal if you personally feel that the subject should be able to get away with it. Bill Clinton was found guilty of no wrongdoing in Whitewater; it's still a scandal because it was investigated and discussed for years. Even if Trump isn't found guilty of obstruction of justice, the fact that he's been accused of it and is being investigated for same should certainly qualify this as a scandal.

I can't find any explanation as to why Trump violating both the foreign and domestic Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution were removed. That Trump is using taxpayer money to stay at his golf resort is not in dispute, and that his hotels are accepting foreign government's money is not in dispute. Both things are clearly forbidden by the Constitution. There's absolutely no ambiguity there. Likewise, nepotism is clearly illegal (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/3110), but that scandal was removed as well with no explanation I could find.

I feel like none of these edits were justified, and someone is apologizing for Trump at the expense of the page's completeness and accuracy. I don't care how much of a Nixon fan you are, you can't edit out Watergate and convincingly call this "list of federal political scandals." That holds just as true for scandals that are presently ongoing.

I am not a frequent Wikipedia editor, so I don't know how to restore the comments without them simply being deleted again. Hopefully someone with more experience in these matters can help restore the more complete and accurate version of the page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.8.211.207 (talk) 04:33, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Iran—Contra affair

Citing the Walsh report, the article defines Iran—Contra affair as: "A plan conceived by CIA head William Casey and Oliver North of the National Security Council to sell TOW missiles to Iran for the return of US hostages and then use part of the money received to fund Contra rebels trying to overthrow the left wing government of Nicaragua, which was in direct violation of Congress' Boland Amendment." Citing Bob Woodward, it also states: "William Casey Head of the CIA. Thought to have conceived the plan, was stricken ill hours before he would testify. Reporter Bob Woodward records that Casey knew of and approved the plan." This should be re-written in some manner because the Independent Counsel, Lawrence Walsh wrote: "Independent Counsel obtained no documentary evidence showing Casey knew about or approved the diversion. The only direct testimony linking Casey to early knowledge of the diversion came from [Oliver] North." -Location (talk) 00:53, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Iran-Contra was not one big plan. It was two separate operations that North opportunistically linked together with the diversion of funds. I have re-written the summary to reflect that. -Location (talk) 16:17, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

References

Rv, why

This article deals exclusively with BLP's addition of uncited content is against policy Darkness Shines (talk) 20:50, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Legislative and judicial sections reordering?

• Currently legislative and judicial scandals are placed in the time span of presidential administrations. This might be convenient for some purposes, but not for clarity and not for protecting this article against random attack. A neutral organization by decades might suffice: Executive by administration; then Legislative by decade; then Judicial by decade. Hmains (talk) 00:23, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Acosta?

Should Alex Acosta be included for Trump admin? The guy cut a deal so a billionaire paedophile could walk....

The calls are beginning for him to step down.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.50.103.83 (talk) 01:21, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Stone?

What about Roger Stone? He is out on bail I believe. 2001:1970:5324:D600:251D:6B7A:280A:5FFB (talk) 05:34, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Notes

I would like to understand criteria for inclusion in this article. It is clear that conviction of a crime is one. But the article also states that "Misunderstandings, breaches of ethics, unproven crimes or cover-ups may or may not result in inclusion depending on the standing of the accuser, the amount of publicity generated, and the seriousness of the crime, if any." The ethical and legal questions raised about Scott Pruitt have led to members of Congress of both parties to call for his resignation and an official call for an ethics investigation as well as extensive press coverage. It seems to me that qualifies but when I added it the edit was deleted on the basis that he has not been convicted. That is true but not necessarily a reason for deletion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jreiss17 (talk • contribs) 01:06, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Because in June he hadn't resigned yet? Though implied but not mentioned, I would specifically add resignation before trial, flight before trial and suicide before trial, to the list of criteria.Orliepie (talk) 19:33, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Both of you are right and I have taken action to clarify things. I would say resignation or other action before investigation meant to evade or confuse findings of fact is a strong indication of a scandal. It should be noted that what is a scandal is independent and different than what is a crime, for which they may or may not also be prosecuted. Caltropdefense (talk) 17:40, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. It's not entirely clear now. Newlenp (talk) 19:42, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Think these copyedits help explain things.Caltropdefense (talk) 20:22, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Much better, thanksOrliepie (talk) 21:08, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Clarified inclusion data, slightly. Johnsagent (talk) 07:15, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Madison and JQA

Are there really no scandals during their administrations? Now that the sections are visible, its glaring that they are missing. Slywriter (talk) 17:46, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Creation of List of federal political scandals in the United States (21st century)

This seems to be a deliberate effort to obscure the major part of this article since it was made without discussion here and seems to have been made without links or redirects from one to the other. Any individual questionable sources or links should be pointed out for correction, not moving a third of the article.Johnsagent (talk) 07:35, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Given this article's hideous length, a split makes sense. As it stands, it's virtually uneditable on mobile and the removal of centuries has only exacerbated the problem as those were the only top level headers generating splits in the article on mobile.

Also WP:AGF as you seem to have immediately moved to conspiratorial reasons for the adjustment. Slywriter (talk) 11:04, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

I've rearranged the headers so each administration is a section. Improves readability and editing especially on Mobile. Whether that's enough to avoid splitting article, I am not sure. I also still need to review links to make sure none were broken in the process (and looks like still need some cleanup in Trump section).Slywriter (talk) 15:47, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with sources or links. There absolutely were links between the two articles. Onetwothreeip (talk) 09:56, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Cool, except the split is not what was referred to there in broken links, it was the adjustment of headers after the split was reverted and whether that broke anything. Slywriter (talk) 12:42, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

I was referring to Johnsagent's comment. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:31, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, but I could not think of any other reason why an editor would remove such an important chunk without discussion, links, or the Scope and Organization section. I apologize if I was wrong, but this is not the first time this article has been attacked and/or vandalized. As to length, I just checked Wikipedia:!Long articles and found 10,000 articles listed there. Wikipedia does not seem to have a problem with length. This one is number five. But I do not think splitting the article is correct. By the way, the article does look better.Johnsagent (talk) 17:30, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Who knows what a given editor is thinking. Perhaps they will explain at some point. Regardless, fixing the sections has done wonders for readability, so any split is low on my priority list now. Thanks for cleaning up some of the mess left. I guess there is code around "-" that works with 3 equal signs but not with 2. Something to investigate in a sandbox later. Slywriter (talk) 17:44, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Onetwothreeip did split it, but it got reverted because he didn’t ask for a consensus first. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 20:10, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Has anyone tried to reach the editor who split the article? Does anybody know how we can reach them? Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:50, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

I thought you split it. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 20:15, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Splitting the article (second attempt)

Poll: Vote AGREE or DISAGREE below and explain your reasons. zsteve21 (talk) 17:41, 29 September 2021

DISAGREE: I just checked Wikipedia:Special:Longpages and found 500 articles listed there. This one used to be number five. I see it has been knocked down to number 18. ‎[[List of Donald Trump 2020 presidential campaign political endorsements ‎[471,170 bytes]]] is now number one, with 88 articles over 400,000 bytes and growing. Wikipedia does not seem to have a problem with length. As I mentioned in April 2021, I do not think splitting the article is correct.Johnsagent (talk) 18:22, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

AGREE: I agree with the split. This list is very long, and the de facto consensus for splits seems to be if an article exceeds 400K bytes, since that seems to be when split discussions are usually brought up. Blubabluba9990 (talk) (contribs) 19:14, 9 October 2021 (UTC)