11 Biggest Political Scandals of All Time

What are the biggest political scandals of all time?

People easily become drunk with power. With money, as well – as soon as they get a taste, they become obsessed, and that makes them sometimes act like addicts who would do almost anything to get the drug they need. They always want more, more money, more power, more prestige, more fame, more material and less spiritual things. Scandals and affairs don’t happen only in politics, but also in sports, arts, everywhere where there is some sort of competition. You might want to read our article on biggest Olympic scandals of all time, and compare it with this article to see how affairs and scandals differ in politics and in sports.

In order to create this list of biggest political scandals of all time, we’ve turned to other similar lists coming from the Rolling Stone, Politics Top 5, the King Maker, and List 25. We’ve assigned points to every affair and scandal based on the position on each of these lists, and summed them all into our Popularity Score. How else could we measure the size of one scandal, than by its popularity in media? Those affairs that have the same number of points share their spots on this list. So, what affair do you expect to see here? Some of them like Clinton and Lewinsky, or the Iran-Contra affair, are no surprise, but we are sure you are not familiar with all of them even though they are big.

Let’s start with the countdown!

 

10. The Profumo-Keeler Affair

Popularity Score: 18

We start our list with an affair that happened in the Great Britain. John Profumo was War Secretary during the government led by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. Even though he was married, Profumo couldn’t resist the charm of a young and beautiful Christine Keeler, and he engaged in a sexual relationship with her. Although this relationship didn’t last long, it brought on serious consequences. The main issue was a suspicion that Keeler was also involved with an alleged Soviet spy, which raised public interest in this affair, and led to many questions being raised about the security risk. Profumo made thing even worse, when he first lied about the affair in the House of Commons (lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland), and was later forced to confess everything. The consequences were his resignation from the Parliament and from the Government, as well as a Macmillan’s resignation from the position of Prime Minister. Although Macmillan claimed he was resigning because of health issues, the main reason was evident to everyone.

 

10. The Keating Five

Popularity Score 18

In the late ’80s and early ’90s, five US senators, John McCain, Donald W.Riegle,Jr., Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, and John Glenn, were accused of corruption and inappropriately intervening on behalf of Charles Humphrey Keating, Jr., who was the chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The investigation led by the Senate Ethics Committee started in 1989 and lasted almost two years.  In the same year, Lincoln Savings and Loan fell apart, and who knows how many investors lost all of their life savings. In the end, Keating served 4 years in prison, was convicted on 73 counts of fraud, and the senators suffered no legal but only political consequences, as this was the affair that had stained all of them for life.

 

 

9. Hiking the Appalachian Trail

Popularity Score 19

When in love, people would do all crazy things and come up with silly and not very bright lies in the heat of the moment. The best example of that is Mark Sanford, former Governor of South Carolina, and his famous lie “hiking the Appalachian Trail”, which later became a euphemism for a “sexual scandal”. What happened was that Mark Sanford decided to visit his mistress, but told his staff he is going to hike the Appalachian trail. His lie was discovered by the a news reporter, Gina Smith, who spotted him at the Atlanta airport coming back from the trip to Argentina.

 

8. William Jefferson Scandal

Popularity Score 21

In 2006, William, J. Jefferson, a Louisiana representative, was under the suspicion of bribery. The FBI started an investigation and entered into his Congressional office. Nothing of consequence happened that year, as he was later elected once again. But, in 2007, the truth came out, and Jefferson was accused of 16 charges, all corruption-related. Everything was resolved finally in 2009, when he was found guilty on 11 out of 16 charges. The aftermath was a 13-year long prison sentence, which turned out to be the longest sentence ever received by a congressman for corruption and definitely one of the biggest political scandals of all time.

 

7. The Plame Affair

Popularity Score 23

This political scandal involves a journalist Robert Novak, a former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, and his wife, a CIA agent, Valerie Plame Willson. What happened was that in his column, Robert Novak identified Valerie Plame as a CIA covert agent. Her husband, Joseph Wilson stated that this act was a payback coming from the Bush administration for his skeptical views, which he published in the New York Times magazine, about the main reason for an invasion of Iraq. Allegedly, Bush attacked Iraq only to “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people”, and Wilson raised many questions about the truth of this statement and concluded that “Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat”. Even though this raised a criminal investigation and it was found out that a State Department official, Richard Armitage, was the one who told Novak about the Valerie Palme’s CIA status, in the end, no one was charged for the leak of this classified information.

 

5. Florida State Election Recount

Popularity Score 28

Back in 2000, the Florida Supreme Court recommended a recount of votes in the election between George Bush and Al Gore, because of some irregularities and unclear results. But, the recount was stopped by the US Supreme Court and its final ruling in favor of George Bush, letting him “win” the presidential elections by 537 votes.

 

5. Rod Blagojevich Corruption Case

Popularity Score 28

Former Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, was accused of many things, including trying to sell congressman’s seat, which Barack Obama has resigned after he had become the President of United States. The Rod Blagojevich corruption case was so special and grew to be one of the biggest political scandals of all time because he was “the first U.S. governor in more than 20 years to be removed by impeachment“. In the aftermath, he was found guilty of 12 charges and received a 14-year-long prison sentence.

 

4. Eliot Spitzer Prostitution Scandal

Popularity Score: 30

New York Governor at the time, Eliot Spitzer, was running some suspicious money transfers, which resulted in the investigation that has discovered that Eliot was regularly paying for special escort services. Very soon after the discovery (2008), Eliot resigned from his position. Unfortunately, his scandals didn’t stop here, as he has been in the news lately,  because of accusations of choking a woman in the Plaza hotel.

 

 

3. Clinton – Lewinsky Affair

Popularity Score: 40

One of the most talked-about political sex scandals in the world, the one everyone has heard of was a sexual relationship between the US president at the time, Bill Clinton, and a White House employee, young Monica Lewinsky. The president denied this ever happened, but later confessed, after certain shameful pieces of evidence surfaced. As a consequence, President Clinton was impeached by the US House of Representatives, but was ultimately acquitted.

 

 

2. Iran-Contra Affair

Popularity Score: 47

The Iran-Contra affair, also known as Contragate and Irangate, happened at the time of the Ronald Reagan administration. Even though Iran was under the arms embargo, the US was secretly selling them weapons. Those profits were used to fund the Contras, who were fighting against the government of Nicaragua.

1. Watergate Scandal

Popularity Score: 57

And the biggest political scandal of all times is, of course, the most famous, most talked about, world known Watergate scandal. The immensity of this scandal is best depicted by the fact that it has made Richard Nixon become the first and only president of America to resign the office. Back at the time, Watergate was a simple name of the hotel-office building in Washington, DC, where the headquarters of the Democratic Party’s were. Nixon’s people were sent to those headquarters to place listening devices. They were caught, and Nixon denied having anything to do with it. Later on, during the trial, the truth was discovered, and some evidence showed up that have proved Nixon’s involvement in different kinds of “dirty tricks” that were used against the Democrats. In the aftermath, the House Judiciary Committee passed articles of impeachment against the Nixon for obstructing justice, and later Nixon resigned on his own with the words “I have always tried to do what was best for the Nation”.