Scandals that threatened presidents: Will Joe Biden be next?

Will the classified documents debacle wreck Biden’s 2024 run? DailyMail.com breaks down the White House scandals that have stained Presidents’ legacies

  • We round up presidential scandals dating back to the Clinton administration
  • Some of the scandals that have left the most lasting impact are impeachments 
  • President Biden faces a crisis as the classified documents saga rumbles on 

President Joe Biden is enveloped in scandal for the second week after the White House admitted under pressure that more classified documents were found among his private records.

Documents were found at Biden’s home in Delaware and the Penn Biden Center, a think tank in Washington, DC, where he kept a private office.

It’s not Biden’s first presidential scandal – he was heavily criticized for the botched 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal that saw 13 U.S. service members killed in a suicide bombing at Kabul airport – but it is the first time a special counsel has been appointed to investigate.

Will the classified documents crisis shut the door on Biden’s re-election prospects?  Rutgers University Presidential historian David Greenberg told DailyMail.com it’s ‘too early to tell’. 

President Joe Biden is currently under fire for the alleged unwitting possession of classified documents from his time in the Obama administration

‘It appears that Biden is confident that they were packed up inadvertently and that he has nothing to hide. If that’s the case, I imagine he will not see this issue as a liability in 2024 and that he is probably going to run for reelection,’ the professor said.

Does a presidential scandal ever go away? We look at examples since the Clinton years to see how things turned out. 

Bill Clinton 

Whitewater: the Clintons’ real estate controversy 

The Whitewater scandal stems from a failed real estate venture between the Clintons and associates with whom they formed Whitewater Development Corporation while Bill was an Arkansas state official.

The Clintons came under fire for the handling of documents relating to the case and were accused of pressuring an Arkansas executive into helping fund the new business venture of Jim McDougal, one of their Whitewater associates.

In 1994, Clinton asked his Attorney General Janet Reno to appoint a special counsel to look into whether his Whitewater transactions were lawful. Hillary Clinton was forced to testify about the matter to a grand jury in 1996.

The former First Couple were never charged or implicated in any wrongdoing, but their business partners, Jim McDougal and his wife Susan, were convicted of fraud charges. Clinton pardoned Susan hours before the end of his second term.

Vince Foster’s suicide and decades of conspiracy theories

The 1993 suicide of Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster has inspired dozens of conspiracy theories about the Clintons, fueling their critics for decades.

Foster, 48, was found dead in a Virginia park on July 20, 1993, of what an autopsy determined was a gunshot wound.

The first Clinton administration scandal was the controversy around a failed real estate venture known as ‘Whitewater’

Within hours of Foster’s suicide, chief White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum is known to have removed files from Foster’s office – some regarding Whitewater – and they wound up in possession of the Clintons’ family attorney.

Five government investigations, including one by House Republicans, concluded he died of suicide. But Clinton critics continued to seize on Foster’s untimely death. 

Conservative Christian leader Jerry Falwell put money into a controversial film that claimed the Clintons staged Foster’s death. Conspiracy theories continue to plague the Clintons’ legacy, despite overwhelming evidence debunking them.

Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky

The most well-known scandals of the Clinton presidency revolve around the former president’s alleged sexual exploits.

Paula Jones accused him of sexually harassing her when he was governor of Arkansas. She stands by her claim today, but Clinton denies ever having sexual relations with her.

Though the case failed, it gave way to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which revealed that Clinton had an affair with his young intern.

During the Jones lawsuit Clinton denied having sexual relations with Lewinsky. That resulted in Clinton’s impeachment for ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ by the House of Representatives. Recent media about the scandal including a series titled Impeachment: American Crime Story are proof of how long-lasting its legacy is.

Among the most famous presidential scandals of all time, then-President Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky (both pictured)

George W Bush 

Halliburton’s ties to Dick Cheney and controversial government contracts 

Energy company Halliburton came under intense scrutiny as business flourished under George W Bush. 

Bush’s Vice President Dick Cheney had been the firm’s CEO before he joined Bush’s Republican ticket. He got a severance package worth $36 million.

Halliburton was accused of getting preferential treatment from the Pentagon as it scored lucrative contracts to support the U.S. involvement in the Middle East.

In one instance, uncovered by the BBC in 2008, Halliburton won a $7 billion contract just before the Iraq war – after being the sole bidder.

The Halliburton scandal tarnished Cheney’s legacy more than it did that of Bush, who was often portrayed as naive and incompetent compared with the vice president’s scheming persona.

Torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay

One of Bush’s worst scandals involved the torture of prisoners, specifically at detention facilities Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay on Cuba’s coast.

In 2003, President Bush started to come under fire over reports describing rampant violence against and sexual abuse of prisoners by U.S. service members.

Harsh methods had been authorized by Bush officials under the sanitized label of ‘enhanced interrogation methods.’

While it did not result in any law enforcement probes, the photograph of ex-President George W. Bush that appeared to tout ‘mission accomplished’ in Iraq proved an embarrassing moment for the Republican leader

This is a file image obtained by The Associated Press which shows an unidentified detainee standing on a box with a bag on his head and wires attached to him in late 2003 at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq. The Bush administration received international criticism for its treatment of prisoners there and on Guantanamo Bay

It resulted in a global humanitarian outcry as photos emerged of bodies piled up and people being bound and blinded while held in uncomfortable positions. Bush and Cheney were accused of being ‘war criminals’, a stain that continues to follow them.

The ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech and the banner that haunted Bush

President Bush’s May 2003 speech was meant to signal the end of serious combat operations in Iraq, but it was a devastating miscalculation long before the war was declared over in December 2011.

Contrary to popular belief, Bush never uttered the words ‘mission accomplished’ – indeed, he went out of his way to remark on the ‘difficult work’ left in Iraq – but he delivered the remarks while a banner with that very phrase hung over his head.

The photo has inspired derision and internet memes that are still shared today – overshadowing his intended message. Bush admitted in 2009 that having that banner during his speech was a ‘mistake.’

The Hurricane Katrina flyover photo

Another self-confessed ‘mistake’ by Bush was a photograph of the Republican commander-in-chief looking out a plane’s window at the horrific damage left by Hurricane Katrina days after it hit New Orleans.

Bush conceded in a 2010 interview with NBC that it made him look ‘uncaring’. Though he reasoned that he did not want to disrupt emergency aid with the security required for a presidential visit, the image was widely viewed as illustrative of his administration’s poor overall response to the hurricane.

In this handout photo provided by the White House, U.S. President George W. Bush looks out over devastation from Hurricane Katrina as he heads back to Washington D.C. August 31, 2005 aboard Air Force One. Bush was accused of looking distant and uncaring for viewing the destruction from the sky

Bush officials were accused of being unprepared for the storm and being slow to get aid to the predominantly black city after the disaster.

Criticism was heaped on local and state authorities too, but rapper Kanye West summarized the long-lasting cultural impact in 2003 with his accusation: ‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people.’

Barack Obama 

Accusations of security failings in Benghazi attack 

The 2012 Benghazi attack spurred several investigations by House Republicans of Barack Obama over accusations that Democratic officials spurned requests for more security at the U.S. diplomatic complex in the Libyan city.

It also followed failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton throughout her political career, resurfacing as a political cudgel during her 2016 race against Donald Trump.

The American ambassador to Syria was killed along with a U.S. foreign services officer and two CIA contractors in a coordinated attack against the country’s diplomatic outpost by an Islamic militant group.

Four lower-level State Department employees were accused of denying requests for added security to the compound, but those at the top – Obama, Clinton and Susan Rice – were cleared.

Opinions on whether it still left a lasting stain on their legacies largely fall along partisan lines. The deadly diplomatic crisis was memorialized in the action movie 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.

A photo made available on September 12, 2012, shows an armed man holding his rifle as he stands next to buildings set on fire at the US consulate, in Benghazi, Libya, the day before. Obama officials faced hours of interrogation from Congressional Republicans over the coordinated attack on American diplomatic officials

A US flag is seen amid rubbles at the US consulate, one day after armed men stormed the place

Fast and Furious: a botched attempt to catch cartels

‘Fast and Furious’ was the codename for an ATF operation that saw 2,000 guns get into the hands of suspected or known criminals, in the hopes that tracking the firearms would help U.S. officials follow the movements of dangerous and powerful Mexican drug cartels.

But the Phoenix-based program, at least publicly, resulted in more grim headlines than busted gangs.

Two guns traced back to the program were found near the scene of the brutal slaying of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in 2010 on the Mexico-Arizona border.

An investigation by House and Senate Republicans in 2011 found more than 100 guns from the operation were linked to crime scenes in Mexico.

Obama was accused of lying when he claimed in 2012 that the program began under George W. Bush – it is believed to have started under Obama in October 2009.

He also claimed executive privilege in an attempt to block Congress from accessing records linked to Fast and Furious. That was denied by a federal judge. It resulted in Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, being held in contempt of Congress – though no charges were ultimately filed.

Republican fury over IRS targeting of conservative groups

In 2013, President Obama’s IRS was accused of unfairly targeting conservative groups for enhanced auditing, immediately spurring Republican outrage and allegations of political weaponization.

While it was found that left-wing groups were also affected, the Republican-led Congress focused much of its attention on audits that hit organizations related to the Tea Party.

A House Oversight Committee report at the time declared that liberal groups were subjected to audits, though at a far lower rate than their right-wing counterparts.

The Arizona-based ATF gunwalking program known as ‘Fast and Furious’ resulted in ex-President Obama’s attorney general Eric Holder (pictured behind the podium) to be held in contempt of Congress – though charges were never filed

An internal probe by the Treasury Department’s Inspector General found that groups with ‘progressive’ in the name were subject to the same audits.

Obama suffered no personal consequences, but his IRS commissioner was subjected to an impeachment resolution that never went anywhere. The Democratic leader has since been associated with perceived IRS weaponization against right-wing groups.

Edward Snowden and Wikileaks

Obama is still very highly regarded in his party, but elements of the far left continue to criticize his administration’s treatment of government whistleblowers.

The Wikileaks scandal and the treatment of former NSA official Edward Snowden have become synonymous with debates over a free press and revelations about the extent of government surveillance.

Snowden leaked highly classified information about the U.S. government’s surveillance capabilities, which he defended as being for the public good. He sought refuge in Moscow after being charged with the Espionage Act violations by Obama’s Justice Department in 2013, and has remained there since.

Obama’s Justice Department has also been criticized for its treatment of whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who was charged and convicted under the Espionage Act after giving Wikileaks over a quarter of a million documents that were either classified or at least at a sensitive security level.

Obama commuted Manning’s sentence after seven years served, just before he left office in January 2017.

Donald Trump 

Robert Mueller’s Russia probe

Special Counsel Robert Mueller was tasked by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to investigate whether Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia to beat Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The probe found no proof of Trump working with Moscow, but multiple members of his circle were criminally charged. Trump has never been able to shake the perception that he’s under Vladimir Putin’s thumb.

Raunchier claims made during the course of the Mueller probe – such as those involving Russian prostitutes and urinating on hotel beds – in the end proved not credible, but have also nevertheless stuck around in the cultural zeitgeist.

Asking Zelensky for a ‘favor’ in Ukraine call

The 2019 phone call between former President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that kicked off Trump’s first impeachment undoubtedly left a lasting mark on his legacy.

Trump asked Zelensky for a ‘favor’ in return for much needed military aid, which until that point had been slow-walked by the administration – to the alarm of national security officials who later spoke out against it.

The ex-president has since continued to defend the exchange as ‘perfect.’

And while it too could have potentially faded into the memory of history, the July 2019 call took on dark new significance last year when Russia launched a brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Rape accusation by E Jean Carroll

A decades-old rape accusation by longtime columnist E Jean Carroll resurfaced in June 2019, about halfway through Trump’s term.

Carroll released an excerpt of her memoir in New York Magazine in which she claimed Trump sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s.

Ex-President Donald Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky led to his first impeachment by the Democrat-led House of Representatives 

She sued him for defamation after he denied her claims by stating ‘she’s not my type’ and accused her of lying to sell her book. Trump’s lawyers sought to shield him using a federal law that protects government employees from defamation suits for statements made in the scope of their duty. 

It’s too early to say whether the accusation how this will affect Trump’s legacy because the court case is ongoing.

Trump asking Georgia’s Brad Raffensperger to ‘find’ votes 

Another phone call Trump touted as ‘perfect’ is under federal investigation.

Weeks after he lost to Joe Biden in 2020, Trump phoned Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger – the state’s highest ranking election official – and asked him to ‘find’ the exact margin of votes he needed to flip his loss.

Trump narrowly lost the Peach State to Biden after historic Democratic turnout in early voting and widespread rejection from moderate voters.

His efforts to overturn the 2020 election have been subjected to federal and Congressional investigation, and recently became part of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s probe.

The call, which was publicly released to the media by Raffensperger, punctuated the end of a tumultuous four years for Trump, filled with reports of backroom dealings and accusations of mafia-like pressure tactics.

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