Corruption and graft in Republican White Houses are like peas in the pod, or hands in the glove

Since its inception in the 1850s, the Republican Party’s time in the White House has had a long and “illustrious” history of corruption and graft. The Trump administration’s dealing in political corruption isn’t new, and neither is the very likely probability of personal financial gain that being president has permitted Trump and his family. We are not talking about the personal behavioral failures of Bill Clinton, which were only impeachable in the salacious minds of Republican House members, but attempts to corrupt the “system” for political and financial gain. That is what the business and corporate friendly Republican Party has always found itself in trouble with, and it has never learned its lesson. Here are some examples from the past:

In 1867, the Crédit Mobilier of America was “founded” as a sham company created by Union Pacific Railroad officers to offer the illusion that it was an “independent” contractor chosen by Union Pacific to build a railroad with federal government loans, which they believed would be eventually “forgiven” and not paid back. The reasoning behind  this sham business was because of widespread suspicion that railroad companies were inflating the cost of construction and pocketing the difference, mainly in the pockets of company officers. And this is exactly what did happen. A rail line was to be built from the Missouri River to the Pacific coast, but much of its span was through sparsely-settled land where there were few immediate opportunities to recoup operating expenses. But Union Pacific officers still saw an opportunity to line their own pockets—and line those of cooperative government officials and politicians in the form of bribes. Two of those accused of graft were the vice presidents who served with Pres. Ulysses S Grant—Schuyler Colfax, and after his resignation, Henry Wilson, who first denied and then admitted his involvement, but was “exonerated” after paying back the amount he claimed to have received. Only a few of the accused received more than a slap on the wrist as punishment after a congressional investigation. 

The origin of the scandal predated Grant’s first administration and he himself was never implicated in any wrong doing. He was known for his personal integrity, but he was not a politician and he apparently was too trusting of those serving under him, which was apparent in the subsequent Whiskey Ring scandal, in which a whiskey distiller ring bribed IRS officials to avoid paying taxes on their whisky. One of those accused of taking bribes was Benjamin Bristow, Grant’s Treasury secretary, and his own private secretary, Orville Babcock. It was charged that some of the withheld taxes went to pay for Grant’s 1972 reelection campaign. Grant again was deemed “ignorant” of what was going on, but his apparent blindness to these illegalities going on right underneath his nose again did not reflect well on him in historical terms.

The scandals of the Warren G. Harding administration in the early 1920s were notorious in their level of flagrant corruption. Charles Forbes, the director of the Veterans Bureau, was pocketing money off of selling government medical supplies to private contractors. Forbes left the country to avoid prosecution, apparently on the advice of Harding, his “friend.” But the fallout from the scandal led to the suicide of the Bureau’s general counsel, Charles Cranmer. The Attorney General’s private secretary, Jesse Smith, confessed to being part of the “Ohio Gang,” which was involved in various graft enterprises, and he committed suicide as well. Harding, like Grant, was seen as an uncorrupt personally, but had been “betrayed” by corrupt “friends” who took advantage of their positions in his administration. 

But before Harding would die of a heart attack, news of another scandal erupted, known as the Teapot Dome scandal. Interior Secretary Albert Fall granted leases of government-held land to at least two private oil companies in exchange for payoffs and “loans” which he was not “expected” to pay back. The U.S. Supreme Court got involved, ruling the leases were fraudulent. Fall was eventually convicted of graft and served time in jail. However, these scandals had little political consequence for the Republican Party, with Harding’s own vice president, Calvin Coolidge, winning election in 1924, and a political novice, Herbert Hoover, winning in 1928. 

While these scandals are not well-remembered by the public, the Watergate scandal remains part of the national conscious. After the arrest of five men for burglarizing the DNC headquarters in the Watergate building offices, and subsequently of their handlers, E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy (the “general counsel” of CREEP), there were rumors that the Nixon White House was involved. Still, the trial and conviction of the burglars might have ended the matter, but one of the burglars, James McCord, wrote a letter to trial judge John Sirica, claiming that the Nixon administration was involved in a cover-up and had pressured the burglars to be silent and take the “rap.” Nixon denied all knowledge of a cover-up, insisting it was the fault of “rogue” staffers, and a number of administration aids and officials resigned. Archibald Cox was initially selected by Attorney General Elliot Richardson to lead an independent internal investigation, but Sen. Sam Ervin started his own investigation with damning public testimony, especially from White House counsel John Dean.

Then  came revelations of secret tape recordings, the “Saturday Night Massacre” in which Richardson and William Ruckelshaus resigned rather than fire Cox, who continued to demand access to the tapes. Cox was then fired by the solicitor general, Robert Bork, whose actions would later come under scrutiny with his failed nomination to the Supreme Court. Public outrage forced Nixon to release some of the tapes demanded, including one with the infamous “gap.” As the noose closed around Nixon with the indictment and/or conviction of close aids, more tapes were demanded by Cox’s successor, Leon Jaworski, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Nixon must provide transcripts of all of the tapes. Three of these transcripts implicated Nixon personally in the cover-up, and with the House Judiciary Committee drawing up three articles of impeachment and some Republican senators announcing their support for impeaching the president, Nixon chose to resign.

Scandal was also a standard feature of Ronald Reagan’s administration.  Early on, his Interior Department was notoriously corrupt, with Interior Secretary James Watt “famously” declaring that “We will mine more, drill more, cut more.” It is interesting to note that current Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch’s mother is Anne Gorsuch, who for those who remember the infamy of the Reagan Interior Department might recall. Gorsuch was “hired” as EPA administrator when she promised to cut the EPA budget in half. She was also selected because she was known as a vocal foe of environmental protection enforcement. In 1982, the Democratic House Energy committee, having gotten wind of some illegalities under Gorsuch’s reign, asked for documents related to the EPA’s handling of hazardous waste dumps and use of Superfund moneys. The White House denied access to the records due to “executive privilege.” 

Rita Lavelle, in charge of the hazardous waste program, took this to mean that she was allowed to destroy relevant documents, including those regarding suspension of safety rules on waste disposal. Illegal private meetings were taking place with polluters, fines were illegally reduced, and most Reagan appointees were still representing the interests of their “previous” employers. Gorsuch and 20 others were forced to resign; during her trial for corruption, it was revealed that Lavelle lied when she denied knowing that her former employer, AeroJet, was illegally dumping toxic waste at the Stringfellow Acid Pits in California, and did nothing to stop or regulate it. Lavelle was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. The New York Times noted the Neil Gorsuch’s previous environmental decisions went beyond the pale in denying courts to decide to allow federal environmental protection laws to have “broad latitude.” Like mother, like son.

But that was nothing compared to the Iran-Contra scandal. The Reagan administration’s National Security Council was running a “shadow government,” illegally circumventing a congressional mandate—the Boland Amendment—that denied funding to the Nicaraguan Contras, who were seen as little more than a group of murderous and drug-dealing thugs rather than “freedom fighters.” NSC head James McFarlane also illegally initiated weapons sales to Iran—ostensibly still on the terrorist list—in the apparently mistaken belief that it would hasten the release American prisoners by Iranian proxies in Lebanon. When this did not happen the idea came about to use the proceeds of the sales to help the Contras purchase weapons, which was were part of Reagan’s mystifying effort to stop the alleged Communist takeover of Central America and even Mexico. Oliver North, through his “boss” John Poindexter, took control of the operation.

What Reagan knew or did not know is a matter of debate, but what is known is that he privately authorized the sales of weapons to Iran in an “arms for hostages” deal. When the scandal became public, there was much effort to shield him from the consequences. North and Poindexter were fired and put on trial by special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh and convicted, but their convictions were overturned and they were set free, supposedly because much of the trial testimony against them was provided under a grant of immunity during congressional hearings. Of course, we know of William Barr’s involvement in all of this.

Thus what we are seeing transpiring in the Trump administration is par for the course for Republicans. The question, of course, is that is it any more “acceptable”? I would hope that the answer is no.