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George Washington
Scandals: Supposedly the first president married his wife Martha, for her money and grand estate. George was said to have had a mistress by the name of Mary Gibbons. Supposedly he was quite fond of her, but she may not have been quite as fond of him considering the story going around about her having copied his important papers while he slept, only to turn them over to the British later! What goes around comes around I guess. -
John Adams
Scandals: he signed the Alien and Sedition Acts and gave himself the power to prosecute anyone unpatriotic enough to speak against his government Adams failed to retaliate. Why? Probably because even a leader this paranoid realized there are some things the public won't believe. -
Thomas Jefferson
Scandals: Thomas Jefferson Engaged in Rape, Pedophilia, and Incest With His Dead Wife’s Lookalike Sister whome sexual conduct involved what would count as clear cut violent sexual criminality today. -
James Madison
Scandals: After predecessor George Washington successfully negotiated a secret treaty to buy Quebec from the British, Adams hastily sold the territory to the Algonquin tribe for three magic beans (though a scandal at the time, Adams was vindicated by history: those beans grew up to be Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce). -
James Monroe
Scandals: Despite having a very clean reputation, James Monroe did make a questionable decision during his time as a U.S. Diplomat in France. Tensions being high between Britain and France, the French wanted to ensure that the U.S. would not favor Britain and possibly give them an upper hand. But the signing of the Jay-Treaty did just that, the French however did not find out about this agreement until weeks later, even though Monroe knew about it. -
John Quincy Adams
Scandals: John Quincy Adams accused Andrew Jackson of murder while serving as a military officer. Andrew Jackson accused John Quincy Adams of having been a pimp while serving as a diplomat in Russia. Lurid accusations circulated by handbill and in partisan newspapers. -
Andrew Jackson
Jackson married a woman named Rachel Donelson in 1791. Rachel believed that she had been legally divorced after a failed first marriage. However, this turned out to be inaccurate. After the wedding, her first husband charged Rachel with adultery. Jackson then had to wait until 1794 before he could finally legally marry Rachel. This event was dragged into the election of 1828, causing the pair much distress. Rachel passed away two months before he took office, which Jackson blamed. -
Martin Van Buren
1 Worked in a Tavern as a Youth #2 Creator of a Political Machine #3 Opposed by Three Whig Candidates #4 Daughter-In-Law Served First Lady Duties #5 Blocked the Admission of Texas to the Union -
William Henry Harrison
Scandals: Tecumseh’s Curse, also called the Curse of Tippecanoe, stems from an 1809 dispute between U.S. President William Henry Harrison and Shawnee Indigenous leader Tecumseh. Some believe the curse is the reason that Harrison, and every following president up to Kennedy who was elected in a year ending in zero, died in office. -
John Tyler
1 Remarried While President #2 Had 14 Children Who Survived to Adulthood #3 Treaty Over Northern U.S. Boundary #4 Joined the Confederacy #5 Studied Economics and Law -
James K. Polk
James K Polk had bad timing in the era of Manifest Destiny. Ultimately he ended up annexing parts of Mexico, which are now New Mexico, Texas, and California. Although you may be thinking that this is awesome, it created a ton of tension about whether these new territories should be slave states or free states, further straining relations between the North and the South. He also risked war with England over Oregon, but luckily no one actually thought Oregon was worth fighting over. -
Zachary Taylor
Scandals: Several members of President Taylor’s cabinet found themselves under investigation over corrupt dealings with the Galphin Affair land scandal. At the center of the controversy was Secretary of War George Crawford, who resigned from office. -
Millard Fillmore
Scandals: Fillmore faced heavy controversy after admitting California to the union in 1850, thereby granting citizenship to Orange County rock outfit Sugar Ray. -
Franklin Pierce
Scandals: He proposed annexing Cuba, by arms if necessary, but his opponents, suspecting the addition of a new slave state, outed the plan and ultimately forced him to renounce it. He did manage to secure U.S. recognition of a dubious regime in Nicaragua, presided over by an American proslavery adventurer, William Walker, who had instigated an insurrection and installed himself as president. -
James Buchanan
The Supreme Court infamously ruled in the Dred Scott case that African Americans were not and never could become U.S. citizens, and the federal government couldn’t outlaw slavery in its territories. Buchanan allegedly influenced the case’s outcome and thought it would permanently put the slavery issue to rest. Instead, the country grew more divided. Buchanan went on to further alienate antislavery forces and divide his own party, the Democrats. -
Abraham Lincoln
But there was at least one other thing he hated with equal ferocity subordinates stepping on his toes. In May 1862, these two passions collided with depressing results. Union soldiers under the command of General David Hunter had managed to occupy a fair chunk of South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia. With the Confederacy now vanquished in the region, General Hunter did something both deeply heroic and entirely unexpected he declared all former slaves in the occupied states free. -
Andrew Johnson
Johnson was in strong opposition to giving the freed slaves the right to vote as well as with many other efforts of the Reconstruction period. He was constantly butting heads in Congress, mainly with Radical Republicans who had the majority. They managed to pass the Tenure of Office Act in 1867, which forbade Johnson to fire Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War, without Senate approval. -
Ulysses S. Grant
Scandals: The first scandal to taint the Grant administration was Black Friday, also known as the Gold Panic, that took place in September 1869, when two aggressive financiers cornered the gold market in their New York Gold Room, with blatant disregard to the nation's economic welfare -
Rutherford B. Hayes
5 Memorable things and stuff that Rutherford did! 1 Had an Early Interest in Politics #2 Studied Law at Harvard #3 Fought for the Union During the Civil War4 Served as the Governor of Ohio #5 Became President With the Compromise of 1877 -
James Garfield
Scandals: While not implicating the president himself, James Garfield had to deal with the Star Route Scandal in 1881 during his six months as president before his assassination. This scandal dealt with corruption in the postal service. Private organizations at the time were handling postal routes out west. -
Chester A. Arthur
5 Memorable things and stuff that Chester did! 1 A sharp dressed man2 Arthur destroyed his records3 Fought for equality and justice for African Americans #4 Established a bipartisan Civil Service Commission #5 Distinguished himself brilliantly during the Civil War -
Grover Cleveland
Even back then, in the 19th century, it was not so unusual for a presidential campaign to revolve around a scandal. A scandal happened to President Cleveland during his first presidential campaign in 1884. The information broke out that he had an illegitimate son. Cleveland admitted it, and even though it caused a public scandal, he was still elected president. In fact he was elected again in 1892 making him the only president in U.S. history who served two non-sequential terms. -
Benjamin Harrison
Scandals: Benjamin Harrison Benjamin Harrison's Administration was notable for its lack of action. Corruption ran rampant during his tenure, and the federal budget surpassed $1 billion for the first time. Elected 1888 -
Grover Cleveland
Even back then, in the 19th century, it was not so unusual for a presidential campaign to revolve around a scandal. A scandal happened to President Cleveland during his first presidential campaign in 1884. The information broke out that he had an illegitimate son. Cleveland admitted it, and even though it caused a public scandal, he was still elected president. In fact he was elected again in 1892 making him the only president in U.S. history who served two non-sequential terms. -
William McKinley
Scandals: Oregon Land Fraud Scandal President McKinley appointed Oregon U.S. Federal District Attorney John Hall to investigate land fraud. However, instead of prosecuting the fraudulent land companies, Hall used his knowledge to blackmail them and was later found guilty of the charges. -
Theodore Roosevelt
Scandals: Early in his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt sparked a scandal when he invited the African-American educator Booker T. Washington to dine with him and his family; he was the first president ever to entertain a black man in the White House. In 1886, Roosevelt ran unsuccessfully for mayor of New York City. -
William Howard Taft
Scandals: Pinchot-Ballinger Controversy Despite being chief forester in the Taft administration, Gifford Pinchot openly criticized President Taft and Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger for selling out Alaska’s coal lands. Taft responded by firing Pinchot, eliciting further outrage from the press. -
Woodrow Wilson
Caused a public scandal simply by getting engaged. The president’s wife of 29 years, Ellen Axson Wilson, died in August of 1914. She had been First Lady for 17 months. Seven months later, in March of 1915, Woodrow Wilson met a widow named Edith Bolling Galt. They hit it off so quickly that the president proposed in May. In an era when a year of mourning was traditional in high society, plenty of nasty gossip followed about Wilson’s ‘disrespect’ for his first wife. -
Warren G. Harding
1 Son of Two Doctors #2 Owned the Marion Daily Star Newspaper3 Dark Horse Candidate for President #4 Fought for Fair Treatment of African-Americans #5 Numerous Foreign Treaties Entered -
Calvin Coolidge
Scandals: The Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s demonstrated to Americans that the oil industry could wield great power and influence government policy to the point of outright corruption. The scandal, which played out on newspaper front pages and in silent newsreel films, seemed to create a template for later scandals. -
Herbert Hoover
Scandals:The “scandal” in 1928 was not whether the marriage was valid in a civil sense, but that it was performed by a Catholic priest and therefore might not be seen as religiously valid at a time when Protestants discriminated against Catholics. In the 1928 election, Hoover’s opponent was Gov. Al Smith of New York, a Catholic. -
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Scandals: FDR & Lucy Mercer Rutherford: Lucy was Eleanor's social secretary in the period before 1918. In September, 1918, Eleanor discovered a packet of love letters from Lucy to FDR. Eleanor later admitted, "the bottom dropped out of my own particular world & I faced myself, my surroundings, my world, honestly for the first time." FDR and Eleanor immediately stopped living as man-and-wife. Lucy was dismissed but came back during FDR's later years. -
Harry S. Truman
Scandals: Most notably, Attorney General J. Howard McGrath became the center of a corruption scandal which cut into Truman's popularity. Truman also inherited Roosevelt's staff of presidential advisers. By the mid-1940s, the President's staff included administrative assistants, appointments and press secretaries, and counsels to the President. -
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Scandals: Personal Gifts Controversy While Eisenhower himself avoided charges of corruption, the same cannot be said for members of his administration, who found themselves under investigation for receiving expensive gifts. -
John F. Kennedy
Scandals: Kennedy was a serial cheater, commonly known for his womanizing tendencies and sexual scandals. His indiscretions nearly ended his relationship in 1956 when he left his very pregnant wife behind to go yachting around Europe with Senator George Smathers. While he was partying in a different continent, Jackie gave birth to a stillborn girl, alone. -
Lyndon B. Johnson
Scandals: President Lyndon B. Johnson was a “sexual gorilla” who put an alarm on the Oval Office door so he could use it as his private brothel, an explosive new book reveals! Incredibly, the Texas Terror openly boasted about his conquests and thought nothing of copping a feel right in front of his wife, Lady Bird, who tolerated his crude antics for the same reasons Hillary Clinton puts up with her skirt-chasing hubby, Bill — blind ambition and political power! -
Richard M. Nixon
Scandals:Richard M. Nixon made three major speeches on the Watergate scandal during 1973 and 1974. The first was on April 30, 1973, in which he announced the departure of Dean, Haldeman and Ehrlichman. A more defiant speech was delivered on August 15, 1973. -
Gerald R .Ford
Scandals: Watergate scandal and turned the job over to his Vice President, Gerald R. Ford. Today the vice president lives on the grounds of the United States Naval Observatory, but when Ford was in the job, the residence at the Observatory was still being prepared for him. -
James Carter (Jimmy)
1 Son of a Farmer and a Peace Corps Volunteer #2 Served in the Navy3 Became a Successful Peanut Farmer4 Won Against President Ford in a Very Close Election #5 Created the Department of Energy -
Ronald Reagan
Scandals: The scandal that marred Ronald Reagan's presidency was rooted in two separate military initiatives in which American involvement was prohibited by federal law.. The first was the ongoing war between Iran and Iraq.Officially, American foreign policy took no sides in the conflict; however, secretly, officials at the National Security Council (NSC) were selling weapons (at heavily inflated prices -
George H.W. Bush
1 Transformed the Immigration Reform Debate #2 Declared the First Federal Ban on Racial Profiling #3 Did not Appoint Justices in the Mold of Scalia and Thomas4 Used the Bully Pulpit to Protect American Muslims #5 Integrated the Executive Branch -
William Clinton
Scandals: The Clinton– Lewinsky scandal was a United States political sex scandal that involved 49-year-old President Bill Clinton and 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The sexual relationship took place between 1995 and 1997 and came to light in 1998 -
George W. Bush
1 Transformed the Immigration Reform Debate #2 Declared the First Federal Ban on Racial Profiling #3 Did not Appoint Justices in the Mold of Scalia and Thomas4 Accepted Record Numbers of Refugees and Asylum-see5 Used the Bully Pulpit to Protect American Muslims -
Barack Obama
1 Rescued the country from the Great Recession, cutting the unemployment rate from 10% to 4.7% over six years #2 Signed the Affordable Care Act which provided health insurance to over 20 million uninsured Americans3 Ended the war in Iraq4 Ordered for the capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden5 Supported the LGBT community's fight for marriage equality -
Donald Trump
Trump's dual impeachments both are about fundamental conflicts between what are perceived as his personal interests and the interests of the country as a whole. The Ukraine scandal centered, like his earlier scandal linked to Russia, on Trump's attempts to convince a foreign entity to aid him in a presidential election.
