Talk:List of federal political scandals in the United States

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)

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)

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 accusation of 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.

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.

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. 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 Waters, and funny-but-non-systematic scandals like 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 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?

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)

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)