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This article chronicles the ten most salacious, high-profile, political sex scandals in United States history and, where applicable, cites books written about or mentioning those scandals. 1. President Bill Clinton The most notorious political sex scandal in American history occurred between 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, and 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky. During his political career, which included multiple terms as Governor of Arkansas and one term as state Attorney General, Clinton was rumored to have been involved in various sex scandals. One of those scandals--bound to the Lewinsky matter--involved former Arkansas state employee, Paula Jones. Paula Jones alleged, inter alia, that when Clinton was Governor he ordered a state trooper to bring her to a room at the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock, Arkansas, where Clinton propositioned her, dropped his pants, and exposed his genitals. After he was elected President, but prior to the expiration of the statute of limitations, Paula Jones instituted a sexual harassment lawsuit against the President arising out of the Excelsior incident. Clinton initially raised several constitutional arguments as to why a sitting president should not be required to respond to civil litigation. Eventually, the issue came before the United States Supreme Court which unanimously ruled against the President: "Deferral of this litigation until petitioner's Presidency ends is not constitutionally required." During the discovery phase of the Jones lawsuit, President Clinton submitted to a sworn deposition at the White House. In that deposition, Clinton was questioned about suspected extramarital affairs with other government employees, including Lewinsky. After much wrangling, Clinton finally responded: : "I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky." Afterward, however, it was revealed that Lewinsky purportedly had a blue dress soiled with the President's DNA during a sexual encounter at the White House. Under pressure to acknowledge the extent of his relationship with Lewinsky, Clinton reluctantly admitted that he and Lewinsky had engaged in oral sex and fondling in the Oval Office. It was subsequently disclosed that Clinton engaged in extramarital sex acts with Lewinsky on nine separate occasions. Clinton maintained, however, that he did not perjure himself in the deposition because he never had intercourse with Lewinsky-arguing that he did not believe that fellatio, cunnilingus and fondling constituted "sexual relations." Subsequently, two Articles of Impeachment were introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives charging President Clinton with perjury and obstruction of justice. After a party line vote in the House Judiciary Committee, the House of Representatives impeached Clinton on December 19, 1998, by votes of 228-206 and 221-212 on each respective article. On February 12, 1999, however, the United States Senate acquitted the President by votes of 55-45 and 50-50. As a result, President Clinton was not removed from office. During the pendency of the impeachment proceedings, Clinton agreed to pay Paula Jones the sum of $850,000.00 to settle the sexual harassment case. President Clinton was also held in contempt of court and fined $115,000 for giving false testimony in his deposition. As a consequence, he was disbarred by the United States Supreme Court and his license to practice law in Arkansas was suspended for five years. Book(s): Kolb, Marvin. One Scandalous Story: Clinton, Lewinsky and the Thirteen Days That Tarnished American Journalism Starr, Kenneth. The Starr Report: The Official Report of the Independent Counsel's Investigation of the President Toobin, Jeffrey. A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal that Nearly Brought Down a President. 2. Senator Strom Thurmond The longest preserved secret in the history of political sex scandals, former presidential candidate, Governor of South Carolina, and United States Senator Strom Thurmond, a long-time segregationist and opponent of the Civil Rights Act, once fathered a mixed-race child with his parent's African-American maid, Carrie "Tunch" Butler. The child, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, was born to 16-year-old Butler and 22-year-old Thurmond in 1925. She was raised in Pennsylvania by Butler's older sister and her husband. In 1948, when his daughter was 23-years-old, Thurmond ran for the Presidency of the United States as the segregationist Democratic Party (Dixiecrat) candidate. He later represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 to 2003, first as a Democrat and then as a Republican. In the lengthiest filibuster by one Senator in United States history, Thurmond once spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes in an unsuccessful attempt to derail the Civil Rights Act of 1957. In 2003, Strom Thurmond left office at the age of 100--the oldest and longest-serving senator in history. On the day of Senator Thurmond's death on June 26, 2003, Essie Mae Washington-Williams held a press conference disclosing that she was Thurmond's oldest child-then 78-years-old. Washington-Williams stated that she did not publicly reveal that she was the Senator's daughter during his lifetime out of love and devotion to him, and because it was not to either of their advantages. She further stated that her father provided generous financial assistance to her well into her adult life, including paying for her higher education and providing her with spending money. After graduating from the University of Southern California with a Masters Degree, Washington-Williams established her career as a school teacher in the Los Angeles public schools. Shortly after Washington-Williams' press conference, the Thurmond family publicly acknowledged her lineage. Book(s): Washington-Williams, Essie Mae.Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond 3. President Grover Cleveland The 1884 Presidential election between Democrat Grover Cleveland and Republican James Blaine involved the first widely reported political sex scandal and provided a template for how to come through such scandals. On July 21, 1884, the Buffalo Evening Telegraph ran a sensational story titled: "A Terrible Tale: The Pitiful Story of Maria Halpin and Governor Cleveland's Son." The scandal was that Cleveland, a lifelong bachelor, fathered a son out-of-wedlock a decade earlier, committed the mother to an insane asylum, and placed his child in an orphanage. When the story broke, it rapidly spread nationwide, leading to a spontaneous discussion regarding the public integrity and personal morality of elected officials. Blaine's campaign immediately pounced, insidiously spreading the unofficial campaign slogan: "Ma Ma, Where's my Pa?" In response, Cleveland immediately advised his campaign staff to concede the accusations and "Tell the Truth." According to Cleveland, he accepted the word of Maria Halpin that he was the father of her child, that she later began to drink excessively and became mentally ill, and that the child was placed in an orphanage in the hope that he would be adopted into a stable family. The campaign thus admitted to the scandal, but played it down, citing Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton as model statesmen engaged in similar transgressions. Cleveland's campaign also pointed out that he was widely recognized as a man worthy of the public trust, but that Blaine, a family-man, was oft accused of being financially corrupt. Cleveland narrowly defeated Blain in the electoral college, 219-182. After his election, Cleveland's supporters answered the slogan of the Blain campaign with "Gone to the White House, ha ha ha!" On June 2, 1886, 49-year-old President Cleveland married 21-year-old Francis Folsom, the daughter of his former, deceased law partner. Cleveland and his wife had five children. The President's son with Maria Halpin went on to become a medical doctor. Book(s): Jeffers, H.P. An Honest President: The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland 4. President Thomas Jefferson Rumors long persisted that Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson, carried on an extramarital affair with one of his slaves at Monticello. In September 1802, during Jefferson's first term as President, those rumors morphed into a sex scandal for the ages when political journalist, James T. Callender, wrote in a Richmond newspaper that Jefferson had for many years "kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves. Her name is Sally." Callender further reported that Jefferson and Sally had "several children." Adding to the already salacious story, the President's mistress was later identified as Sally Hemings, the out-of-wedlock daughter of Jefferson's father-in-law and thus half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha. The controversy was advanced by Jefferson's Federalist opponents and was recounted in many newspapers during the balance of Jefferson's presidency. It was President Jefferson's policy, however, to offer no public response to ad hominem attacks and the sex scandal had no ostensible impact on his presidency. In November 1998, DNA studies were performed to determine whether Jefferson had fathered any of Heming's children. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation thereafter formed a research committee consisting of nine members, including several noted historians, to review the DNA reports and other material evidence. In January 2000, the committee reported that the weight of all known evidence indicated a high probability that President Jefferson was the father of Sally Heming's youngest child, Eston, and perhaps all six of her children. Book(s): Gordon-Reed, Annette. Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy Lewis and Onuf. Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory, and Civic Culture (Jeffersonian America) 5. Presidential primary candidate Gary Hart Gary Hart served as a United States Senator from Colorado between 1975 and 1987. Most notably, however, Hart competed for the Democratic nomination for President in 1984 and 1988. In 1987, Hart was the clear frontrunner for the Democratic nomination until various news organizations reported that he was engaged in an extramarital sex scandal with model and commercial actress, Donna Rice. In April of 1987, Hart officially declared his candidacy for the presidency. Almost immediately, rumors began circulating that Hart was having an extramarital affair. In an interview with The New York Times, Hart responded to the rumors by challenging the press. He reportedly said: "Follow me around. I don't care. I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They'll be very bored." Concurrent with The New York Times interview, two reporters from the Miami Herald were already investigating the sex scandal allegations against Hart and staked out his residence. On the evening of May 2, 1987, the Herald reporters observed a young woman leaving Hart's Washington, D.C., townhouse. She was identified as model/actress, Donna Rice. The Herald published the story of the Rice sighting on May 3, 1987. In response, Hart and his political supporters attacked the Herald story maintaining that the relationship between Hart and Rice was platonic. On May 5, 1987, however, the Herald received a tip that Hart had spent the night with a young woman on a yacht called the "Monkey Business." The Herald obtained a photograph of Hart on a dock with Donna Rice sitting on his lap with her arms wrapped around his neck. The photograph was subsequently published in the National Enquirer. On May 8, 1987, Hart ended his campaign. In December 1987, however, he attempted to reenter the primary. After being rejected by voters in the New Hampshire primary and on Super Tuesday, Hart again withdrew from the race. Book(s): Kessler, Ronald. In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect(mentioned) Slanksy, Paul. The Little Quiz Book of Big Political Sex Scandals(mentioned) 6. Presidential primary candidate John Edwards The Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004, presidential hopeful in 2008, and one term United States Senator from North Carolina, John Edwards, had an adulterous affair with former campaign photographer, Rielle Hunter, while continually campaigning for "the great moral issues that face our country." In October 2007, The National Enquirer began a series of reports alleging an extramarital affair between Edwards and Hunter. For nearly a year, however, Edwards defiantly denied any political sex scandal; assisted, in large part, by a mainstream media blackout of the matter. But, in July 2008, The National Enquirer ran another exclusive story, this time exposing Edwards as he visited Hunter and her newborn infant at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. Forced to acknowledge the relationship, Edwards issued a statement and gave an ABC interview wherein he admitted to the affair, but denied being the father of Hunter's child. In a macabre twist on the story, Edwards' close friend and campaign confidant, Andrew Young, recently claimed that Edwards once promised a distraught Hunter that he would marry her in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by the Dave Matthews Band once his wife's recurring breast cancer took her life. In May 2009, it was reported that Edwards' 2008 presidential campaign is being investigated by the United States Attorney's Office for conversion of campaign funds related to the Edwards-Hunter political sex scandal. Book(s): Moon, Robert. Scam: The Liberal Misinformation Machine And Its War On America (mentioned) Slanksy, Paul. The Little Quiz Book of Big Political Sex Scandals (mentioned) 7. U.S. Representative Gerry Studds The first openly gay member of Congress, Gerry Studds was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts between 1973 and 1997. In 1983, Studds was censured by the House of Representatives after being involved in a sex scandal with a 17-year-old Congressional page at his Washington, D.C. apartment. Studds also admitted to having sex with the teen during a 2-week trip to Portugal. In Washington D.C., the age-of-consent was 16-years old and, therefore, Studds never faced criminal prosecution. Although Studds acknowledged the inappropriateness of having a sexual relationship with a subordinate, he defiantly turned his back on the members of the House during the reading of the censure motion. Studds argued that a formal censure was too harsh a punishment because his relationship with the teenager was consensual and not illegal. Unpersuaded, the House of Representatives voted 420-3 to censure Studds. As further punishment, Studds was also stripped of his Chairmanship of the House Merchant Marine Subcommittee. In spite of his trysts with the teenager and the 1983 censure, Studds' constituents reelected him to the House of Representatives for six more two-year terms. Book(s): Slanksy, Paul. The Little Quiz Book of Big Political Sex Scandals (mentioned) 8. U.S. Representative Barney Frank In 1981, Barney Frank was elected to the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts. In 1987, he joined fellow Massachusetts congressman, Gerry Studds, as the only openly gay members of Congress. In 1989, he again followed Studds by being involved in a lascivious sex scandal. In 1989, Congressman Frank hired prostitute, Steve Gobie, paying him $80 for sex. Congressman Frank then established a permanent relationship with Gobie (also an alleged drug user) for nearly 18 months. As part of that relationship, Frank wrote several letters to Gobie's probation officer on Congressional letterhead, paid Gobie to run errands, permitted Gobie to use his apartment and car, and fixed 33 of Gobie's parking tickets. It was during this time that Gobie started his own male prostitution service, running it from Congressman Frank's apartment. The scandal was first reported by the Washington Times on August 25, 1989. The House Ethics Committee subsequently investigated the matter. The Committee concluded that there was no evidence that Frank had known of or been involved in any illegal activity, but they recommended a reprimand for using his congressional office to fix Gobie's parking tickets. The House voted 408-18 to reprimand Frank. Book(s): Slanksy, Paul. The Little Quiz Book of Big Political Sex Scandals (mentioned) 9. Governor James "Jim" McGreevey Jim McGreevey, the 52nd Governor of New Jersey, resigned his office in August 2004 after admitting to being involved in an extramarital, homosexual affair with an Israeli man, Golan Cipel, who he appointed as New Jersey Homeland Security Adviser. Governor McGreevey met Cipel during a during a trip to Israel in 2000. In 2002, McGreevey came under heavy criticism for appointing Cipel whose qualifications were viewed as woefully inadequate for his position. Moreover, since Cipel was not a U.S. Citizen, he could not obtain the necessary security clearances from the United States government to perform his fundamental duties. Consequently, in August 2002, Cipel resigned his position at the request of the Governor. Two-years later, just prior to the running of the statute of limitations, Cipel threatened McGreevey with a sexual harassment lawsuit. On August 12, 2004, up against that threat, Governor McGreevey (flanked by his then-second wife) called a a press conference where he admitted to the sex scandal, announced that he was gay, apologized to his then wife, and resigned his office effective November 15, 2004. Book(s): McGreevey, Dina Matos. Silent Partner: A Memoir of My Marriage McGreevey, James, E. The Confession 10. Governor Eliot Spitzer Eliot Spitzer served as Governor of New York from January 2007 to March 2008. Spitzer previously was New York State Attorney General where he was an aggressive prosecutor. Spitzer resigned the governorship after he was exposed in a high-end prostitution sex scandal. On March 10, 2008, The New York Times reported that Governor Spitzer had been a client of Emperors Club VIP where he called on prostitute, Ashley Dupré. According to various reports, investigators believe that Spitzer paid up to $80,000 for prostitutes over a period of several years while he was New York Attorney General and Governor. Amid threats of impeachment, Spitzer announced on March 12, 2008 that he would resign his position effective March 17, 2008. Book(s): Elkind, Peter. Rough Justice: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer To read more from this author CLICK HERE. |
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