US presidential Scandals and Constitutional Crisis

US presidential Scandals and Constitutional Crisis

Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon was the 37th American President who served between 1969 to 1974. He is the only president in the history of USA to resign from office. Before becoming president, he had served as a republican US representative, California senator, and also the vice president of America between 1953- 1961 (Aitken, 1996). The Watergate scandal was a political scandal which happened during Nixon’s reign in 1970s. This resulted after a break in at the headquarters of the democratic national committee at the Watergate complex in Washington D.C. The administration at President Nixon tried to cover up this scandal and excluding themselves of any involvement. However, President Nixon was forced to resign as the president of United States in August, 1974 owing to the intensity of the scandal. This is the only resignation of a US president emanating from abuse of office, corruption and constitutional crisis. The scandal also resulted in the indictment, trial, conviction and imprisonment of more than forty five people in the top administration of Nixon who were implicated in the scandal (Aitken, 1996).

Under the US constitution, the legislature is the one mandated to pass laws while the judiciary is responsible for its application with regard to cases or controversies. The executive on the other hand, including the president is responsible for enforcing such. The Watergate problem was that the president who was supposed to enforce the laws happened to be the law breaker. It is virtually illogical to expect the law breaker to enforce the law against itself. With the department of justice at that time being controlled by the conspirators, congress forced Nixon to appoint a special prosecutor but he rebelled against that move. The attorney general at that time also refused to take a congress directive against appointing a private prosecutor to initiate charges against the president. He was subsequent removed from office by the house. Pressure from the public and courts made Nixon to resign in order to avoid impeachment.

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan’s presidency in America between 1981-89 was marked by numerous scandals. Most of these scandals led to investigations, indictment, conviction and imprisonment of more than 140 government officials, the biggest number which has been recorded in US presidents regarding such acts to government officials. The most infamous of such scandals and which nearly destroyed the political career of Reagan occurred in November 1986, when he accepted that US had sold weapons to Iran as part of an attempt for Lebanon to release six hostages that were held in the country. What was more interesting was that some of the money that resulted from this business had been secretly and illegally channeled into a secret fund in order to assist the right wing contras counter revolutionary groups that sought to overthrow the then government of Nicaragua. The Iran-contra scandal has it became to popularly known, greatly damaged Reagan’s reputation as president (Haynes 2003)

This scandal was a constitutional crisis in the sense that congress had had passed laws against the support by America to Nicaraguan Contras. In addition, the administration’s public stance was forbidden against negotiating against the hostage takers, Iran or any terrorists. In such a case, the Reagan administration had broken these regulations and secretly spearheaded a foreign policy operation, thus violating congress regulations.

Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton on the other hand served as US president from 1993-2001. The president however, was impeached by congress shortly after his re election to the second term in early 1998. This owed to the results of the Lewinsky scandal where Clinton had been implicated. This made him the second to receive this action after Andrew Johnson. The congress proceedings against Clinton were based on allegations that Clinton had slept with a Whitehouse worker Monica Lewinsky and lied about it. This was after a report was submitted to the house and which provided “substantial grounds” against Clinton’s impeachment (Roger, 1999).

When the then president was found to have had an extra marital affair with a white house worker, many saw that it might have been a personal weakness or rather failing. What appeared conspicuous was that he had lied against this affair in an affidavit against harassment lawsuit. This is basically what led to his impeachment by the house. In addition to impeachment, his law license was suspended, and was heavily fined for giving false testimony. The Lewinsky scandal and many other scandals during Clinton’s reign clearly affected his presidency and also the administrators as a whole. This and many other scandals had appeared to be a distraction to the operations of white house and congress as a whole. The white house was engaged in managing the crisis that had engulfed it from this scandal and also controlling the damage caused by it. This also became a subject of attack by the oppositionist, intensive media scrutiny and public mistrust against his presidency.

It is true that the presidential office was degraded and damaged from Clinton’s sexual affair. In addition, Clinton damaged his moral authority to reign in U.S.A. Further, scholars and analysts articulated that there would be a long term impact of the Lewinsky scam and the impeachment of Bill Clinton as the U.S president. In essence, the institution of the presidency at this time became limited and lost some of its constitutional mandate.

Reference

Aitken, J. (1996). “Nixon: A Life” Washington, D.C. Regnery Publishing. ISBN 978-0-89526-720

Haynes, J (2003). “Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years”, p. 184. W. W. Norton &

Co. Inc., New York. ISBN 0-393-32434-6

Roger, M ( 1999). “Partners in Power: The Clintons and Their America” Regnery Publishing. p. 100.

ISBN 978-0-89526-302-5. Retrieved August 17, 2011.