Federal government scandals
2009- Obama Administration
Executive Branch scandals
Americorps
Fraud Scandal President Barack Obama (D) suspended Investigator General Gerald Walpin following his investigation of the misuse
of funds by St. Hope Academy formerly run by NBA star and current mayor of Sacramento Kevin Johnson(D).[1] Mr. Walpin's boss
Lawerance Brown (a Bush appointee) had filed a complaint against Walpin for numerous reasons. St. Hope has agreed to repay
$350K.[2]
Bernard B. Kerik (R) former NY City police commissioner who was nominated by George W. Bush for the position
of Secretary of Homeland Security, pleaded guilty on November 5 to two counts of tax fraud and 5 counts of lying to the federal
government. Mr. Kerik had withdrawn his name from consideration due to the charges. (2009) [3]
[edit]Legislative
Branch
Joe Wilson (R) The congressman from South Carolina interrupted a speech about health care reform by President
Barack Obama to a joint session of Congress. After Obama said that no illegal aliens would be accepted under his health plan,
Congressman Wilson shouted, "You lie!" The incident resulted in a formal rebuke by the House of Representatives.[4] (2009)
[edit]2001–2008
George W. Bush Administration
[edit]Executive Branch scandals
Alphonso Jackson (R) The Secretary of HUD
resigned while under investigation by the FBI for revoking the contract of a vendor who told Jackson he did not like President
George W. Bush (R) (2008)[5]
Karl Rove (R) Special Adviser to the president was investigated in 2007 by the Office
of Special Counsel for "improper political influence over government decision-making", as well as for his involvement in other
scandals listed here.[6]
"Lawyergate"[7] Or the Dismissal of US Attorneys controversy refers to the Bush administration
firing without explanation, of eleven Republican federal prosecutors whom he himself had appointed. It is alleged they were
fired for prosecuting Republicans and not prosecuting Democrats. As congressional hearings were called, a number of senior
officials cited executive privilege and resigned rather than testify under oath, including:
Michael A. Battle (R)
Director of Executive Office of US Attorneys in the Justice Department. [8]
Bradley Schlozman (R) Director of Executive
Office of US Attorneys who replaced Battle[9]
Michael Elston (R) Chief of Staff to Paul McNulty [10]
Paul
McNulty (R) Deputy Attorney General [11]
William W. Mercer (R) Associate Attorney General [12]
Kyle Sampson
(R) Chief of Staff to Alberto Gonzales [13]
Alberto Gonzales (R) Attorney General of the United States [14]
Monica
Goodling (R) Presidential Liaison to the Justice Department [15]
Joshua Bolten Deputy Chief of Staff to the President,
found in Contempt of Congress[16]
Sara M. Taylor (R) Aid to Karl Rove [17]
Karl Rove (R) Assistant to
the President [18]
Harriet Miers (R) Legal Counsel to the President, found in Contempt of Congress[19]
Bush
White House e-mail controversy - During the Lawyergate investigation it was discovered that Karl Rove and other high-level
Bush administration officials used servers hosted by the Republican National Committee (RNC) for email, in possible violation
of the Presidential Records Act and Hatch Act.[20] As many as 5 million e-mails requested by Congressional investigators of
other Bush administration scandals were therefore unavailable, lost, or deleted.[21]
Lurita Alexis Doan (R) Resigned
as head of the General Services Administration. She was under scrutiny for conflict of interest and possible violations of
the Hatch Act.[22] Among other things she asked GSA employees how they could "help Republican candidates." [23]
Jack
Abramoff scandal in which Abramoff bribed administration officials and legislators as part of his lobbying efforts. See Legislative
scandals.
David Safavian (R) Administrator of Procurement Policy for the OMB, found guilty of four counts of lying
and sentenced to 18 months
Roger Stillwell (R) Staff in the Department of the Interior under George W. Bush. Pleaded
guilty and received two years suspended sentence
Susan Ralston (R) Special Assistant to the President and Senior
Advisor to Carl Rove, resigned October 6, 2006 after it became known that she accepted gifts and passed information to her
former boss Jack Abramoff
Steven Griles (R) (former Deputy Secretary of the Interior) pleaded guilty to obstruction
of justice and was sentenced to 10 months
Italia Federici (R) staff to Secretary of Interior, obstruction of justice,
four years probation
Mark Zachares (R) staff in the Department of Labor, bribed by Abramoff, guilty of conspiracy
to defraud
Robert E. Coughlin (R) Justice Department official pleaded guilty to conflict of interest after accepting
bribes from Jack Abramoff (2008)
Julie MacDonald (R) Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Interior,
resigned May 1, 2007 after giving government documents to developers (2007)[24]
Lester Crawford (R) Commissioner
of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, resigned after 2 months. Pled guilty to conflict of interest and received 3 years
suspended sentence and fined $90,000 (2006) [25]
Downing Street Memo minutes of British secret meeting with the
US (dated 23 July 2002, leaked 2005) which include a summary of MI6 Director Sir Richard Dearlove's report that "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" This was called the 'smoking gun' concerning W. Bush's run up to war with Iraq.(2005)[26]
Bush
administration payment of columnists to say nice things about Republican policies. Illegal payments were made to journalists
Armstrong Williams (R), Maggie Gallagher (R) and Michael McManus (R) (2004–2005)[27]
Sandy Berger (D) former
Clinton security advisor pleads guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unlawfully removing classified documents from the National
Archives in (2005)[28]
Bernard Kerik (R) nomination in 2004 as Secretary of Homeland Security was derailed by past
employment of an illegal alien as a nanny, and other improprieties. On Nov 4, 2009 he plead quilty to two counts of tax fraud
and five counts of lying to the federal government.(2009)[3]
Torture: US officials authorized harsh interrogation
of prisoners, including waterboarding called torture by many, by US troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere (2004)
Plame
affair (2004), in which CIA agent Valerie Plame's name was leaked to the press in retaliation for her husband's criticism
of the George W. Bush reports which led th=o the Iraq war.[29] Lewis Libby (R) (Scooter) Chief of Staff to vice president
Dick Cheney, was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice March 6, 2007. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison and
fined $250,000. The sentence was commuted by George W. Bush on July 1, 2007. CIA leak scandal (2003) and Plamegate.)[30]
Thomas
A. Scully, (R) administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), withheld information from Congress about
the projected cost of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, and allegedly threatened to fire
Medicare's chief actuary, Richard Foster, if Foster provided the data to Congress. (2003)[31]
Yellowcake forgery:
Just prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration presented evidence to the UN that Iraq was seeking material
for making nuclear weapons from Africa. Though presented as true, it was later found to be not only dubious but outright false.[32]
Karl
Rove (R) was accused of conflicts of interest in making political decisions affecting companies whose stock he owned.
NSA
warrantless surveillance Shortly after the September 11 attacks in 2001, President George W. Bush (R) implemented a secret
program by the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on American domestic telephone calls, but bypassing the FISA court which
must approve all such actions. (2002)[33]
Enron collapse (2002) leading to investigation of its CEO Kenneth Lay
(R), a former member of the Republican National Committee and once considered a possible pick for Secretary of the Treasury,
was a top political ally and financial donor to President George W. Bush. Lay was found guilty of 10 counts of securities
fraud, but died before sentencing.[7])
[edit]Legislative Branch scandals
Ted Stevens Senator (R-AK) convicted
on seven counts of bribery and tax evasion October 27, 2008 just prior to the election. He continued his run for re-election,
but lost. Once the Republican was defeated in his re-election, new Attorney General Eric Holder (D) dismissed the charges
"in the interest of justice" stating that the Justice Department had illegally withheld evidence from defense counsel.[34]
Charles
Rangel (D-NY) failed to report $75,000 income from the rental of his villa in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic and was forced
to pay $11,000 in back taxes.(September 2008)[35]
Rick Renzi (R-AZ) Announced he would not seek another term. Seven
months later, on February 22, 2008 he pleaded not guilty to 35 charges of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.[36]
Jack
Abramoff Scandal, (R) lobbyist found guilty of conspiracy, tax evasion and corruption of public officials in three different
courts in a wide ranging investigation. Currently serving 70 months and fined $24.7 million.[37] See Scandals, Executive Branch.
The following were also implicated:
Tom DeLay (R-TX) House Majority Leader, reprimanded twice by House Ethics Committee
and aides indicted (2004–2005); eventually DeLay himself was indicted (October 2005); DeLay resigned from the House
9 June 2006.
James W. Ellis (R) runs DeLay's PAC, indicted
John D. Calyandro (R) runs Texans for a Republican
Majority, indicted
Adam Kidon business partner of Abramoff, pleaded guilty to fraud, sentenced to 70 months
Michael
Scanlon (R) former staff to Tom DeLay: working for Abramoff, pleaded guilty to bribery
Tony Rudy (R) former staff
to Tom DeLay, pleaded guilty to conspiracy
Robert Ney (R-OH) bribed by Abramoff, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, sentenced
to 30 months
Neil Volz (R) former staff to Robert Ney, pleaded guilty to conspiracy
William Heaton (R)
former staff to Robert Ney, pleaded guilty to fraud, 24 months probation
John Albaugh (R) former COS to Ernest Istook
(R-OK) pled guilty
Jared Carpenter (R) Counsel of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, pled guilty to income
tax evasion, got 45 days, plus 4 years probation
Robert Coughlin (R-PA) pled guilty
Adam Kidan private
citizen, pled guilty and received 70 months
Trevor Blackann private citizen, pled guilty
James Hirni,
(R) former staff to Tim Hutchinson (R-AK) indicted for wire fraud
Kevin A. Ring, (R) former staff to John Doolittle
(R-CA) indicted for 10 counts of corruption
John Doolittle (R-CA) both he and his wife are under investigation (January
2008). Under this cloud, Doolittle decided not to run for re-election in November 2008.[38]
Duke Cunningham (R-CA)
pleaded guilty on November 28, 2005 to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud and tax evasion in
what came to be called the Cunningham scandal. Sentenced to over eight years.
Kyle Foggo CIA Exec. Director, number
3 in the agency, was indicted February 13, 2007 on charges of fraud, money laundering, conspiracy. Plea bargained to one count
of fraud.
Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) struck a U.S. Capitol Police officer in the chest after he attempted to stop her
from going around a security checkpoint. McKinney apologized on the floor of the House and no charges were filed (March 29,
2006)
William J. Jefferson (D-LA) in August 2005 the FBI seized $90,000 in cash from Jefferson's home freezer. He
was re-elected anyway, but lost in 2008. He was convicted of 11 counts of bribery and sentenced to 13 years on November 13,
2009.[39]
Brett Pfeffer (D) Jefferson's Chief of Staff was sentenced to 84 months. (2006)[40]
Bill Janklow
(R-SD) convicted of second-degree manslaughter for running a stop sign and killing a motorcyclist. Resigned from the House
and given 100 days in the county jail and three years (2003)[41]
Robert Torricelli Senator (D-NJ) after 14 years
in the House and one term in the Senate, Torricelli declined to run again when accused of taking illegal contributions from
Korean, David Chang (2002)
Jim Traficant (D-OH) found guilty on 10 felony counts of financial corruption, he was
sentenced to 8 years in prison and expelled from the House (2002)[42]
Edward Mezvinsky (D-IA) Pleaded guilty to
31 charges of bank fraud, mail fraud and wire fraud (2001)[43]
