Presidential Scandals Hall of Shame

In this episode of Presidency Pending, hosts Dr Clare Corbould and Dr Zim Nwokora delve into the complex history of presidential scandals, from Jefferson to Trump. They explore the evolving definitions of scandal in American politics, discussing how historical context, media influence, and partisan perspectives shape public reaction to misconduct. With a focus on Trump’s numerous controversies, they examine why some scandals resonate more than others and reflect on how today's polarized media landscape impacts public perception. This episode gives listeners a deeper look into the forces that determine which political controversies make lasting marks on history.

Creators and Guests

Host

Clare Corbould

Dr Clare Corbould is an award-winning scholar of African American history with some knowledge of Pacific and Australian history, especially as they relate to the United States.

Host

Zim Nwokora

Dr Zim Nwokora is a political scientist specialising in the comparative study of political institutions, especially constitutions, political parties and political finance.

What is Presidency Upending?

Welcome to Pending Presidency, the podcast where political and historical experts discuss the latest news on the 2024 US election.
 
Hosted by Deakin’s Dr Clare Corbould and Dr Zim Nwokora, tune in for a thought-provoking discussion where everything is on the table. Will Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump? What do Australians think of the election? What do the latest opinion polls in Australia look like?
 
This podcast is brought to you by the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University. Please note that the views, thoughts, and opinions expressed on this podcast are the individual's own.

Welcome back to Presidency Pending,

the podcast created
when an Australian political scientist

and an Australian historian,
both of us expert in topics

related to the United States,
walked into a bar.

We couldn't think of a punchline.

So instead, we created a podcast.

I'm Claire and I'm Zim.

We are both academics in Deakin's School
of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Today we're going to talk about

presidential scandals
and their impact on elections.

I don't have any concrete
evidence on this,

but the era of Trump seems to be one
that's unusually scandalous.

There are Trump scandals
involving sexual mores, campaign finance,

and the big lie about the 2020 election
outcome, amongst others.

But of course, presidential scandals
have a long history that predates Trump.

So this is a nice topic for us to discuss
as it has both contemporary

and historical resonance.

Claire, how about we begin by putting

some of what we see in the news today
in historical context?

Let me put a provocative question to you.

Is Donald Trump
the most scandalous president or

presidential candidate in history?

Easy one. Yeah.

Oh. Oh, you wanted more?

That was a remarkably succinct answer.

Yeah. No, I've. Got that right.

Of course it's complicated.

I mean, you said you have no evidence.

It's a feeling.

I guess it's a question
about how we would judge this.

I think he's probably the one
whose actions have most frequently

been scandal scandalous
in the eyes of many or even most.

Although he does have some competitors
for that,

as we'll talk about as as we go on. But,

yeah, I think he is the most scandalous,

but I think he's also had the combination
of a number of changes

that we've seen over the last
20 or 40 years in American politics

and more broadly.

So, yeah, I mean, I think part of
that is the 24 hour news cycle

that starts in the 1990s,

and that also coincides with Clinton's
presidency starting in 1993.

And Clinton is
perhaps the most immediate one.

you might recollect
for the number of scandals.

Lots of,

lots of scandals

relating to sex with women who were not
his wife and also some scandals relating

to real estate investments in Arkansas
before he became president.

So there,

yes, before
while he was governor of Arkansas.

So there, perhaps
there aren't quite as many, I don't think.

But he was sort of in the news
for scandal reasons.

A lot.

But there's the other way you measure it,
of course, which is magnitude.

And here we're talking about

someone who tried to steal an election
that he did not win.

That's a quite a big one, although again,
arguably not unprecedented.

So we can talk about that too.

We might save that for, for later.

But I think the constant lying
that and just the brazenness

with which Trump does that, the flagrant
flouting

of all kinds of rules and norms.
He doesn't release his tax records,

nobody seems to mind too much.

I mean, people mind

and people are still talking about
it. He doesn't release these medical records,

doesn't do all the things, doesn't
even sit down with 60 minutes, which is,

I think, a custom of 40 years standing
or something for presidential candidates.

So that sort of thing,

I think, amounts in a way,
to something we could call a scandal.

You know,

obviously we'll talk about
plenty more things, as we go.

But I want to step back a moment
and ask you how political scientists

define scandal, because historians, we say
it's sort of in the eye of the beholder.

It's a little bit like Winona Ryder
and irony in Reality Bites in 1994.

The film, where she can't define
irony, doesn't get a job

and then says afterwards, well,
I know it when I see it.

I mean, in a way, scandals
are made by the response, if you like.

So, you know, it's
scandalous in the 18th century

for a woman to show her ankles or for D.H.

Lawrence in the 1920s to write about sex
between a lady and a gardener,

in very, very explicit terms.

You know, that book was Lady Chatterley's
Lover was banned for 30 years.

But, things change over time.

That's easy for us. That's
that's exactly what historians do.

But what about political scientists?
How do you define a scandal?

Yeah. Good question.

I think the historians are onto something
quite profound in,

the observation that scandal is in the eye
of the beholder.

In political science, we tend to like to
be able to define things in ways that are,

that capture
an essence that is unchanging.

And if you kind of are asking, well,

what is that essence
in this context of scandal?

It's perhaps that, there, there
is, misconduct

that was previously concealed
that has now been revealed.

Okay.

So it's the revelation of what was

previously concealed misconduct.

Or if you want to describe misconduct
as corruption,

then it's basically corruption revealed.

And that's, that's,

a definition that,
that political scientists use,

following
people like Theodore Loewy and others.

And if we think about scandal,
in that way, then a number of questions

follow which move us towards
the historian's perspective on this.

So we might say, well,
what makes for, misconduct?

Well, that's that's contingent.

That depends a little bit on context.

That depends a little bit on, historical
context, but also partizan context.

So we know that, different parties
see different things as

scandal.

And we know that the effects of scandal
depend on, what your party identity is.

So, for a very long time, I was reading
papers that would say things like,

morality

scandals impact Republicans
more than Democrats.

And the reason was because Republicans
tended to be greater moralizers.

So what people really hated, essentially,
was the hypocrisy

at the heart of the,

extramarital affair, for example,
you know, the Republicans tended

to view these kinds of things
in their public proclamations,

more definitively than the Democrats,
and therefore

they were penalized whenever they were
called doing doing that vice themselves

right? Yep.

So there's there's a partizan aspect
to this.

There's a historical aspect, as you

as you point out, the mores and the,
the norms change over time.

And, another important distinction
is the type of scandal.

So financial scandals, typically,

matter more than,

sexual scandals these days, particularly
when they deal with the public purse.

Yes, indeed. Yeah.

And, it's probably true.

Well, it depends on the kind of
sex scandal, I suppose. And,

as we've

seen in the Australian case recently,

sex scandal that involves an assault
or an alleged assault is obviously,

much more, but is most serious,

than a consensual relationship.

Although the lines on those things
can sometimes be blurry

to, you know, we'll talk later
about Clinton and Lewinsky.

Yeah. I love that you,

of course, it's in the name
you're a political scientist,

which means you need something
that is what is repeatable and verifiable.

I mean, isn't that the definition?
So systematic?

We aim for that, you know, bearing in mind
that it's a social science.

Right. So there's a degree to
which is contestable as well.

So the beauty of history, of course, is

we always say it's somewhere
between an art and a science,

which means we can go either
way, as we please.

I think we describe ourselves in

similar terms, but maybe we lean
a bit more toward toward the science.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so Trump, we probably agree,
is a fairly scandalous figure.

How one might measure
it is up for debate, but,

it would be interesting,
I think, to discuss

some of the political scandals
with which he's been involved.

And think about their broader
significance.

And I'm thinking here particularly
about his recent convictions for, 34

felonies, relating to his payments
to Stormy Daniels, the

entertainment worker

who with whom
he had some sort of dalliance,

and to stay quiet about that
sexual encounter just prior to that.

So sorry.
The sexual encounter was a few years ago.

He paid her
just before the 2020 election.

Technically, that was a violation
of campaign finance law.

And this listeners would, you believe,
is one of Zim's areas of expertise.

And he's just finished
writing a book about political financing.

So what do you make of that scandal?

I reckon you've got some takes on that
that will be,

you know, distinct from most. Yeah.

It was an interesting, scandal
in the sense that this was

a sexual, liaison,

between Trump and Stormy Daniels.

I think it happened around 2011,
and then it became influential in 2016.

That tells us another,
important systematic point

about scandals, which is that
they don't always matter when they happen.

Sometimes their political effects
are years and years later.

We see this particularly
in, the electoral cycle.

So the scandal, that occurred,
you know, five, ten

sometimes 20 years ago becomes salient,

whenever someone is running
in a presidential election campaign.

So this was the case
with the Stormy Daniels affair,

and Donald Trump it

seems paid Michael Cohen, his fixer, to,

pay a large sum of money to Stormy Daniels
to stay quiet about this.

And, she signed,

the material
that ensured she couldn't talk about it.

And all this happened because she was
going to sell the story to the press.

Yeah.

And this falls foul of campaign

finance regulations because,

the money was, in effect, a way of
influencing the electoral outcome.

So it should have been declared.

It was not.

There were other, violations of law
that it committed.

All in all,

there was clear evidence of

campaign finance violations and Trump

lost the the legal battle on that front,

I think in terms of the political effects,
fairly muted.

And I think part of that is because the,
whole legal saga was fairly technical.

And in a climate that's highly polarized,

the public, I think, pays relatively
little attention to such matters.

And also, campaign
finance violation doesn't

feel like the kind of thing, that,

the public gets too animated
about, in part because they believe

that many politicians
are committing these things all the time.

And sometimes they're called,
sometimes they're not.

And particularly
in a highly Partizan contest,

there is a belief that people are out

to get someone who might win.

So the effects on Trump
were probably more muted than

I think other

things that he could have, that
he's in court for.

So for example, the, the, the,
the insurrection

on, on January 6th and the fallout
from that is, I think, politically

much more consequential.

Yeah.

And perhaps in the longer term as well.

Although I think the his opponents
are getting some mileage

from being able
simply to call him a convicted felon.

I think that possibly is going some way.

Absolutely. Yeah.

But perhaps even to moving voters.

But that, of course, is the
the magic bullet.

So absolutely.

And let's forget let's not forget
that's not just about campaign finance.

That's, that's about
the civil trial for sexual assault. Yes.

And there's also these,
these pending trials as well.

So Trump is
has got a busy legal portfolio to put it

mildly. Not least sentencing
at the end of November next month

just after the election. Yeah, absolutely.

So I think, if he doesn't win
this election, then,

the fall from grace could be
fairly dramatic for for for Mr..

Trump.
There is no golden escalator into Rikers.

Not yet.

Who knows what the future may hold?

And just on the more general point
about political finance

I think this is, a really interesting area
when we're talking about scandal,

in part because it's perceived
to be so generally scandalous in getting

the relationship
between money and politics

right, in the United States
and in many other democracies has been

a real challenge.

You know,
I've done a bit of research in this area.

I don't want to go into the weeds, but,

let's just say
it's a thorny area of governance.

No, no doubt.

And, well, and I think the rest of
the world looks on in horror as Harris

raises

one, I mean, if you are inclined
to hope she wins, good on Harris

for raising $1 billion in three months
or whatever crazy number it is.

I think it's a billion. Yeah.

Which one assumes is
she's using in the ground game,

as they say, to knock on doors
and what have you.

But, you know, you step back a moment
and you think,

what could that money be being used for?

Yeah.
I mean, advertising is expensive as well.

That's one way to reduce the amount of
money in politics is to have

a public broadcaster

guarantee space
for the electoral candidates

to seem to circulate information
about their campaigns

as a public spirited model.

That is an excellent idea.
It is an idea, right?

And it centralizes it too. Everyone

has the same access only.

Yeah.

Should have the same access.

I mean, it becomes complicated

when you think of minor parties in that,
in that equation. Right.

Oh, I was even thinking

of voters, they would have

well, I mean, assuming
they've got the technology

that have equal access
then to what is available to them.

Absolutely. Voters, the consumers do.

But if you're thinking

about the political producers
of manifestos and political information,

often, often those arrangements favour
the larger parties.

And so Jill Stein would not be able
to wreak her havoc with her Greens party.

Is that what you're saying?

I think it's unlikely that the

people who administer such an arrangement
would would give her equal time.

Yeah,
or even proportionate time. Have we ever,

I mean, gosh, we're a pair of academics,
you've you brought up a great solution

to the problem of,

some of the problems of political
financing in the United States

and immediately
put a hole in your solution. Well done.

It's the nature of the game. It's problematic.

Okay, Claire, turning

now to another Trump scandal.

In 2016,
about one month out from the election

The Washington Post
published a video of Donald Trump

having a lewd conversation
in which he boasted about sexual assault.

The scandal was known as the Access
Hollywood recording

because Trump was on a bus on his way
to the NBC show of that title.

What are your thoughts about that scandal,
particularly

applying your historical lens?

Well, as you mentioned, I mean, there

is it fair to say there are two major
types of political scandal?

There's the sex scandal
and there's the money scandal.

I'd say that's probably 90%
of scandals. There's

other ones

but, you know, a lot of them
seem to fit into those two boxes, right?

I mean, I guess there's
the occasional sort of, giving a job

to a friend or a relative, but
they kind of probably fall into the money.

Yeah, money side of things. Yeah.

There's a foreign interference
kind of scandal, which is a bit different.

So, I mean, sex has brought down
plenty of politicians in the United States

and everywhere.

And indeed,
I had a partner during the years

of the Clinton Lewinsky scandal
who said to me, 'what are you worried about?

you know, everyone lies about nookie.'
Which should have been a warning.

Let's not go down that road.

Should have been a warning.
But I've long remembered that.

So plenty of them.

If we're thinking primarily of presidents
or presidential hopefuls, though, I mean,

but the first big one, I suppose, in terms
of the US history is Thomas Jefferson

Aad Sally Hemings.

Hemings was

a teenager

who was owned by

whom Jefferson owned,
and he took Sally Hemings and,

or had Sally Hemings and her older brother
James as his servants in France, rather.

And I use that word advisedly,
because in France,

when he was the minister
to France in the 1780s,

enslaved people could go to the court
and petition for their freedom.

And Sally Hemings and James Hemings
both knew this and,

to the best sort of historical, to

the best knowledge of historians.

Jefferson struck a deal
with the two of them, and he had also

started a relationship with Sally Hemings,
who at this time was 14 or 15.

And his defenders will say,

oh, that was a normal marriageable age
for women at that time.

Yeah, yeah. Ugh.

I mean, I just,

I don't but she was also
the half sister of his dead wife.

So if you don't know this story,
listeners, that means that,

Martha Washington's
father was also the father

of Sally Hemings,
whose mother was also enslaved.

So it's all kind of,

it's very they're all very closely
related, let's put it that way.

This relationship lasts for a very long
time until, in fact, Jefferson's death

on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration
of Independence, if you can believe that

in 1826, the same day that John Adams
dies, incidentally.

How old is Sally Hemingway,

When Hemings dies, I mean sorry,
when when, Jefferson dies. She must..

oh, I'm, she's younger than him because
she lives for another 15,

20 years,
I think, so considerably younger than him.

Yeah.

I can't quite remember by then
But all of their children are grown.

Well, grown.

She must be.

I'm doing the maths.

Just thinking.

She must be about in the mid 50s

I think at the time he dies,

And they strike a deal, we think,

which involved him finding ways

to free
the children that they had together.

And there are four of those
who survived to adulthood, two of whom

it's it's complicated,

they are freed and never heard of again.

They're very light skinned.
They probably pass into white society.

Yeah.

There are a whole bunch
of their descendants,

possibly in the United States right now,

who don't have any clue about this
history. Fascinating.

But the two others,

were still enslaved when Jefferson died
but found their way to freedom.

And. Yeah,
so that's it's a scandal at the time.

So Jefferson's opponents
bring it up in the newspaper.

It's well known in their communities
that this relationship is going on,

but it's not that unusual either.

Yeah,
but it is still something he has to hide.

So it's it's, and that the family hides.

I mean, there were no pictures
of Sally Hemings.

They blocked in the stairway
at Monticello, his property,

where,

that went from the

kitchen up to his quarters
so that she could go,

come and go unseen by the many visitors
who often stayed at Monticello.

Because, you know, everyone's traveling
long distances by carriage or horse.

People stayed over at each other's houses
all the time.

They blocked that in, after her death,
you know?

So, yeah, it's a big scandal, but it's

well known among African-Americans.

So the very first novel published
by an African American,

in the 1850s, it's too hot for American
presses, is published in London,

is about a fictional president
who has a slave wife, mistress, concubine.

The the word that you choose
there is really important, with whom

he has children.

So it's a really kind of,

you know, it's a it's a story that's kept
alive in African-American history.

Yeah.

And is only conceded by the white side
of the Jefferson family

and by conservative historians
when DNA evidence provides,

you know, unrepeatable proof of, the,

mixed race descendants of Jefferson
and Sally Hemings.

Truly fascinating story.

And I think I'm just,
putting on my political sciencey

hat, a great demonstration
of the role of the media in,

controlling the spread of scandal.

You know,
the scandal is a bit like a bushfire.

It can either be really small
or it can spread like wildfire.

And the determinant of that is, is,
is the media, you know, and as you were

telling that account of Sally Hemings,
I was thinking of, FDR and his polio

and the fact that this wasn't widely known
that FDR could not walk.

It was, a conspiracy,
but of the best sense.

I sometimes, ask students,
do you think that the United States

could elect a man or woman today
who could not walk?

And they roundly say no. Yeah.

And I think that's probably true.

And the fact that they could do that,
the 1930s was only possible

because of a conspiracy of silence
by by the media class.

Yes, you know.

Well, also
perhaps a different definition of privacy.

Yes. Well,
so it wasn't just that in FDR case.

I mean, there was the affair

with Eleanor Roosevelt,
his wife's secretary, that went for years.

And indeed, Eleanor's
own relationship with Lorena Hickok.

So there's a lot,

yeah, that was kept quiet by a nod.

And in the Jefferson case,
I mean, the man who revealed this story

was a really miserable person,

very much disliked, and a drunk.

So he was easy enough to discount.

So you know exactly what you're saying.

This is still a fairly fledgling, nation.

Yeah.

There's no guarantee
it's going to hold together.

It's only been, you know, what,
not even 20 years.

You know,
when Jefferson becomes the president

and there's a conspiracy of silence
so that that is not more widely known

at the time too.

So in Virginia,
everyone knows in Washington,

everyone knows in New York, people
probably know.

Some people probably know.

African-Americans everywhere
around that neighborhood

certainly

Know but it doesn't go
any further than that because,

it doesn't get much media attention.

Yeah, yeah.

And of course,

the Conspiracy of Silences have often
had bad effects rather than good ones.

It's important to add that caution.

There are many, many examples out there.

Let's go back.

When I start talking about Jefferson and
Hemings, I can go for a while. There's,

there's something else,
which is a distinction, I think, between a

maybe affair and scandal
or when or to ask that,

to put it a different way,
when does sex becomes scandalous?

So there's another really
there are a couple of other,

you know, really famous instances.

Grover Cleveland, toward
the end of the 19th century, was accused

of having fathered a child out of wedlock
prior to his accent

and he instructed

everybody around him to say it's true.

And he went on to win the election.

Right.

And then he lost.

He's the only person to have served
two terms

nonconsecutively. Yes.

So we may see that repeated again, of
course, after this coming election. But,

yeah.

So at his rallies, apparently opponents
would turn up and they would chant,

mama, where's my pa?

Hahahahaha!

Cheeky.

Yeah, I don't think he danced to that.

Possibly not. That's a
that's a topical joke.

If you're listening much later

about Trump last week at one of his rallies.

So yeah, I mean lots of different examples
that I could go into as well.

Clinton, of course, is by far the most,

well known.

Again, I mean, we're going to save him
for a little longer,

but I think looking back to,
and this is the sort of historical answer

to your question about the significance
of that Access Hollywood tape.

You know, as soon as that was released,
those are of those among us who are

inclined to vote for the Democratic Party
or to vote left, thought he was sunk.

It was so revolting.

It was so brazen.

I mean, it's

it's it's both an admission of assault
or at least a brag of a possible assault.

Who knows whether he's done it?

Well, actually, we have evidence.

But we have civil cases. At least,

and you know that.

And he was not.

And in fact,

it was a really good indicator
of the kind of nature of his appeal

that I think the Democratic Party
took too long to understand.

I think, yeah, lots of us did, you know.

So Hillary

Clinton refers to him and his supporters
during that campaign as 'deplorables',

and that has terrible blowback for her,
because apparently you can't be rude

about anyone who votes for
someone who's clearly sexist and racist.

Yeah.

You know,

and it's that sort of, again,
it's that backlash against,

what people call political correctness

that it becomes worse to call someone
a racist than to,

than even to have experienced racism.

Right.

So this kind of crazy calculus where
we all have to be nice about Trump voters.

I don't have to be.

I'm not,

you know, it it if you're going to vote
for someone like that,

I mean, I'm,
I'm reminded of the Australian general

who said the, you know, the, the standard
you walk past is the standard you accept.

Yeah.

You vote for someone like Trump
who says you'll grab them by the pussy.

Well,
you know, I'm not having a drink with you.

Yeah,
I think I'm just just to dwell on that.

that, episode a bit more.

I suspect that some of the, differential
effects, you know, between left

leaning people and right leaning people,
if you want to use that terminology,

turns on who they're listening to. And,

the media is very fragmented
and polarized like the parties these days.

So I think what gets reported as
scandal varies depending on

whether you're listening,
tuning in to MSNBC versus versus Fox.

You know, every so often,
I like to listen to,

outlets that whose opinions
I don't agree with

because I think it's really important
for us to have a sense of,

how the community at large
is, is, is listening,

how they are receiving the news
and what their sources of information are.

And, I was listening to,

the Tucker Carlson,

new show. Taking one for the team,
I would say.

Yeah.

TCN I think it's called and, one, one,
interesting story that, that,

that cropped up on
there was the, alleged scandal,

around the loss of acuity,
of of of Joe Biden.

So his mental state and, speaking of,

you know,
the role of the media in, in potentially,

covering up,

latent or potential scandals.

This I think was, a very interesting line
of discussion, right?

On the grounds that, Joe Biden
withdraws from the race under conditions

where, you know, most Democrats
think this man should not be president

now, let alone in four years.

And one wonders how long he'd been in that

in that condition for right. Were is

not for that first debate

would people know
that Joe Biden was in the situation?

And if that's the question we're all
asking, then, then how have we got there?

I think there's interesting questions
around that, that situation

that, Republicans are dwelling
on, you know, so,

the, the, the scandalous stuff
that the left is talking about

is rather different
from the potentially scandalous stuff

that the right is talking about.
Just to give an example.

That's an excellent example.

And, goes to your, your,
your sort of expression

about the conspiracy of silence,

which I think, you know, Democrats
were clearly keeping around Biden.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I still think there's
a level of inequality around,

all of the press going after Biden,
but not so much after

Trump's own mental acuity, which
I think we're asking questions about.

And there's there's no parallel
between what we're saying about Biden and,

you know, Trump's allegations of of
insurrection and sexual abuse, etc., etc..

So I think these are rather different
exercises.

But, just as, lessons in scandal,
I think, thinking through

what triggers the,

what are the ingredients

that really make a scandal come together
and have political effect?

That process is complicated.

And for that scandal then to resonate with

the community
is another set of processes too.

So I think it's really, it's
a complicated

propagation process

the the the the making of a scandal. Yes.

because we all need to
or you need a majority of people,

or perhaps senators to agree
where the line is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That that someone has allegedly crossed.

Yeah. Sure.

And, and also, you know, you need often
people from the scandalized politicians

party to accept that, you know, and this
I think, is a really, really important,

marker of whether it's a proper scandal
and if it's going to have

consensual appeal.

So in, in, in a scandal

that has really widespread impact,
that brings down presidents

you need the president's party to go

'This is a scandal.'

This is what ends Nixon's presidency.

It's when the elites on his side
say, look Mr.

President, you need to go.

If, the elites decide not to do that.

As with Clinton, right?

That's when you survive.

And, you know, the Democratic elites
kind of go this is very naughty,

but we're not going to we're not going
to remove you from office for this.

And, you know, some of the political signs
on this shows

an interesting outcome, which is that,

if the parties prepared

to take the hit for you,
then sometimes they suffer electorally.

And we see we see after the,
the, the Lewinsky affair

that Clinton's popularity rises
and that's much remarkable.

What's also interesting is that the
Democratic Party's popularity falls. Yes.

And that really is a divergence. And that really affects Al Gore
in the 2000 election.

Absolutely.

So that party in a sense, absorbs
some of the fallout from from the scandal.

Right.

So I'm thinking about the Republican Party
in 1868.

Now, as you know, historians do,
when Andrew Johnson,

who was the successor to Lincoln
after he was assassinated, was impeached.

So he's the first person
impeached prior to Clinton, because in,

as you say, in the case of Nixon,
his own party

members came to him, in Congress and said,
we will, senators,

I'm not sure

who it was specifically, but said
we will side with the Democrats on this.

And we will impeach you
and we will convict you.

So you need to resign.

And, you know, which was

and it's a good thing he did it. And,

well, is it? anyway

Whoever, I'm sorry

this going down the other road
there for a moment

imagining that he hadn't,
but in Johnson's case,

so he removes the Secretary of War,
which is not permitted to do,

and he's been obstructing.

So Johnson is not actually a Republican,
and he was a southern Confederate, but

he was the only senator
who did not resign his position

when the Confederacy seceded
from the United States.

And for that, when Lincoln was looking
at a knife edge election in 1864,

he got Johnson on as his running mate.

And then he died,
which was really unfortunate

for many reasons, but particularly
because he picked Andrew Johnson,

who had been a slave
holder had no sympathy for the Republican,

the radical Republican cause,
which was about, equality as well as unity

after the Civil War and was obstructing
reform all over the place.

But in the end, he was impeached,
but not convicted

because he had little time to go
and the damage was done.

They knew they could,
that they could get rid of him.

But in the way the party takes the heat
there, too.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

I mean, in the long term,
they don't win the reconstruction if you like

and they

And they lose office a few years later
for a considerable length of time.

Yeah. Yeah.
Well let's fast forward a little bit

In time and stay with Donald

Trump and his scandals.

Another noteworthy headline is that Trump

is the first president
to be impeached twice.

So let's talk about those two incidents.

Claire, tell us,
why was Trump impeached the first time,

and in what sense was that a scandal
and does it have any parallels in history?

You know, it's funny what you just
said about sort of technical

prosecutions and what have you.

They're harder to remember, aren't they?

I mean, everyone remembers that Clinton
was impeached for the Lewinsky scandal.

Yeah. Few people remember Whitewater

Plenty of people remember it,
but in much less detail.

And in this case, I thought,
what was it again?

I had to look it up.
How embarrassing is that?

This one is about foreign interference
in the 20-2020 election.

So, he was impeached
for allegedly reaching out to,

the Ukrainian leader who,
like him, had been a TV star, though

haven't they diverged since
and asking for his assistance

in digging up some dirt on Biden and,

particularly and then through Hunter
Biden, Biden's son, which, of course, is

still kind of was lingering
until the moment that Biden stepped aside.

And now nobody's talking about it
any longer.

Just before he did that,
he had withheld something like 300

million, $350 million in aid to Ukraine.

Which they needed, obviously.

He said it was not a bargaining chip,
but it looked,

you know, if
what if it rolls like a bargaining chip?

It is a bargaining chip.

So this is what he's impeached
for in, on that

first occasion. And,

you know, this is a huge scandal for many.

And then it's kind of a different kind
of scandal as the case drags on.

It doesn't take that long once
it's up and running.

But, because of who votes to impeach,
who votes to call witnesses, which becomes

a really important issue because
without any witnesses, there is no case.

Yeah.

And senators who didn't
necessarily need the Republican Party,

They were independants
or even some Democrats, they,

do not vote to bring in witnesses
and that sinks the case all together.

And that in itself
is some something of a scandal.

And people who
wanted to see this properly,

to see Trump effectively properly
tried, really have a lot of respect

for example, for Mitt Romney,
who voted to bring in witnesses.

Yes. So, at great political cost,
actually,

you know, he was right,

he's in the club,

although he's always been on the edge
of the club because he's a mormon.

So, the Republican Party has
even though he ran for president, he's,

always been on the edge of that.

So, so there isn't really a case
I could think of

in the case, you know of precedence
that is like this.

There's some there's one
that came to mind, which was,

just in the late 1970s, when
something like, was it 400 people?

I forgot the number have I got that

completely wrong.

Were taken hostage. Americans.

In Iran? Yes.

Just after the Iranian Revolution and the,

Orthodox governments come to power
and they take these hostages.

It's hugely damaging

for the sitting president, Jimmy Carter,
who was sort of saying he's a nice guy, anyway.

And he's
running against Ronald Reagan,

who's all about American

power and never backing down
and all the rest of those kind of things.

There is, good evidence
that there was a Republican delegation

to Iran

before the election,
who could have brokered a deal

to get those hostages released.

And the Republican Party said, how about
we wait till, after the election?

Because it'll look really good for Carter.

And indeed they do.

And that's one of the first things
that Reagan, you know, quote

unquote, achieves in office
is to get those hostages released.

Yeah. So that to me is scandalous.

But it was not a scandal at the time
because people didn't know.

about this. fascinating.

Fascinating moment in history.

And if I recall correctly, there isn't,
there isn't sufficient evidence

to connect that delegation
to the Reagan campaign.

And that's kind of critical
as to how one interprets,

whether this is, quite the coincidence.

Right? Or truly indeed

A monumental scandal, You know,
telephones existed and as historians

know, I mean, people now would assume
that it was all done through WhatsApp.

But, you know,
the telephone doesn't leave,

doesn't necessarily leave a lot of traces.

Yeah, of course, there can be records,

not necessarily of the call itself,
but of the call happening.

Yeah.

But yeah, they can be hard to find.

Yes. The records can be hard to find.

This is of course
just a little bit after Richard Nixon.

So Americans are very familiar
with things being said that aren't said,

and, and messages
being conveyed without words.

So indeed, you know,
there are ways of making clear

what you want without actually having
to say things explicitly.

We keep circling around Watergate.

We'll try to come to it, in a logical way.

So but for now, let's
go to the second Trump impeachment Zim,

which is a response to the insurrection
on January 6th, 2021.

How do you interpret that episode and its

significance.

Yeah, it was hugely important episode.

I think this is,

to to my mind, the,

biggest scandal of the Trump

presidency, perhaps,
you know, the, the, the,

the actual

rejection of the election
result might be up there.

But to then go and incite a riot

and encourage people to storm

the seat of government in the capital,

is scandalous by any measure

if one abides by democratic rules,
norms, principles, etc., etc..

So, I think it's not surprising
he was impeached for that.

Bearing in mind he takes an oath of office
to uphold the Constitution and so on.

What was interesting

is that he was impeached
even though his term had nearly expired.

And so,

that was a really, really strong signal,

that there was going to be a penalty
for this.

And the impeachment
proceeded through the House.

For those of you

who aren't so familiar with the
impeachment process, it's got two steps.

Not exactly
paralleling the criminal process,

but you might think the impeachment
is the charge,

and the removal from office is a bit
like your conviction.

And, requires a two thirds majority in,

the Senate to, to actually convict
Donald Trump

was impeached, but he was not convicted.

Because basically, quite, quite
a few Republicans were prepared to,

support him at that turn.

And that was quite interesting
because several of them, including,

leading Republicans such as Mitch
McConnell, were very damning of Trump

and his actions
in respect of the insurrection.

Mitch McConnell had some really harsh
words for for Donald Trump,

but he wasn't prepared to convict him.

And, many others
basically adopted that, that position.

And that was critical
in saving Trump from from conviction

and that conviction
would have removed Trump from office

only I think a couple of weeks
before he was due to leave anyway,

but it would have had
a very significant impact on this race

that we're now in in 2024. Why?

Because if Trump was convicted,
then with a simple majority of the House

in the Senate, he could have been
prevented from running for office again.

So Trump may not have been permitted
to be on the ballot,

had that conviction happened,
so that impeachment the the, the

the absence of conviction in that process
is, I think, rather significant.

And I think it
perhaps also speaks to a more general,

point around the weakness of that part of,

the presidency article, article two,
I think it's section

four is the impeachment article,
the impeachment clause,

and it's never been successfully deployed.

So, presidents have been impeached
but not convicted.

And, you know, one wonders,

okay, you've,
you've you've incited an insurrection

and people have stormed the Capitol
and a police officer has died.

At what point does
that clause get used, and, and

and become a live,

and and viable way
of removing a president.

I think that that was a test case.

And so I think it's still an open question
as to whether impeachment is,

is actually a way, in practical terms,
to remove, a sitting president.

This is, you know, people have resigned
in antissipation of impeachment.

People have, been impeached
in a way that affects them electorally,

but nobody's actually been removed
through the impeachment process.

So that leaves, I think, interesting
questions about the exact nature

of, of this, legal instrument,
how it works, how it ought to work.

Anything requiring a two thirds majority.

Yeah, yeah.

Of the Senate, given the way the Senate

is composed with two senators
from every state. Yep.

Regardless of the size of the population
is going to be very it's

going to be very hard, at the very least
to remove a Republican president.

Right. Absolutely.

You're absolutely correct.

So that level of consensus is rare.

But, the funny thing about,
the impeachment process is that it

requires lawmakers
to assume a different role.

So typically the lawmaker is a Partizan
elected official.

They are implementing the policy
of their of their party.

That's their primary role.

But when it comes to impeachment,
the lawmaker becomes a judicial actor.

So the lawmaker becomes, a judicial actor

who has to be thinking about their oath
to the Constitution.

And so the question that the whole,

insurrection process raised for me
was, to what extent can

the lawmakers remove
one hat and replace it with the other?

And I think the answer, at least to
my mind, was not entirely successfully.

But as you say how much evidence
would one need?

Exactly.

But that's exactly what the Constitution
requires them to do in that moment,

because there is no role for the judiciary
in the removal of a president.

So for the president
to be subject to the law,

the lawmakers have to assume this
judicial role,

which requires them to adopt a different,
mindset.

And, you know,

listeners
might think we are, again, in the weeds.

But given the recent Supreme Court case
that may provide immunity,

to presidents doing things
in the execution of that office,

I mean, again, that's
it will be for the courts to determine

or for future laws to determine
the extent of what that means.

But that is yet another avenue

foreclosed or closed for

keeping a president in line
and for keeping the checks and balances

balanced, as it were.

Yeah.

So impeachment may become more important.

And if it doesn't work,
that's a big problem.

I could couldn't agree more.

And I kind of think the Donald Trump
era has been one in which

this notion of presidential immunity
has been thoroughly tested.

Not since Richard Nixon
have questions around,

you know, what exactly

what exactly is the status
of the presidency under law?

Those questions have arisen in a way that,
we haven't seen in several decades.

I think that might be one,
although it might not be

about the presidency
as such, that you might argue it is.

And that's the 2000 election.

I mean, that might be more

about the process
by which that president is elected. Yes.

But I think it is also about the conduct
of those presidents and their legitimacy.

Yeah.

Because George W Bush, everybody knows

they knew at the time
he did not have the votes in Florida.

Yeah.

And that's why the Republican Party
was so staunchly,

trying to prevent
recounts in various counties.

And, you know,

and, and eventually
one of their many cases,

Democrats brought many cases
to the, to the Florida courts.

The Republicans
went for the federal courts

because they were more likely
to get a favorable hearing there.

You know, it
eventually gets to the Supreme Court

who says, yep, first of all, no,
you can't recount in that county,

whatever the particular facts of that case
were.

And also, you need to stop recounting
and give us the result.

Yeah. And that's

arguably an instance of overreach
in the case of the Supreme Court.

And, you know, okay, you're the one often

talking about ideal situations.

Had there been one there, had George
W Bush acted ethically,

he would have said, well put this on hold
and look at all the votes.

Yeah.

You know, that was that is the only
ethical thing to do in that situation.

If you really believe
in one person, one vote.

And of course he didn't.

I mean, this is the real world.
But yeah.

And to his credit,
Al Gore was very gracious, and did

a real act of statesmanship in

conceding in a context where,

you know, it's perfectly plausible
that he could have fought on.

I mean, I can imagine many
political characters who would have been

much more aggressive in challenging

Bush's actions under those circumstances
than than, than Gore was.

But I think

by the time it got to the Supreme Court,
he had no choice.

I mean, he had conceded before that, but
he'd had to rescind the concession, right.

Because the votes, you know, they

got a report that there were 4000,
it was a difference of 4000.

It turned out to be 1000.

What a mess. Yeah. What a mess. Yeah.

Like, we've digressed a little bit, but.
Still in the right domain.

Give ourselves some credit.

Okay, well,

should we
take, since we are veering on digression,

how about we take,
a purposeful, intentional turn,

this time in a comparative, direction?

And let's think about, scandals
in Australia as well.

When you think of high level
Australian political scandals,

which ones come to mind?

Oh, that's a great question.

You know,

as a symbol of how things have changed
in the early 1980s,

one of the cabinet ministers in 1980s.

Is it Fraser's government still?

Yeah, just before Hawk's elected.

So it's about like 82.

A guy called Mike Mackellar
who I actually knew.

He died in 2016.

He was caught, if you like.

Or it turned out that one of his staffers

had filled out an import form
for a colour television incorrectly,

and he resigned immediately
from the ministry.

Sorry, from the cabinet
and from his ministerial position, 1982.

I mean, the fact that everyone
always talks about it as a colour TV,

I don't know whether like, had it been
black and white,

would that have been okay?

No, I'm never really sure.

I guess they were still novel enough
at that time for it to be always

with the descriptor, but goodness,
can you imagine that today?

I mean, absolutely not
that some very minor

indiscretion, certainly not high crimes
and misdemeanors, which is the

you know, that's the category
you need for an impeachment, for example,

in the United States. Yeah.

But of course,

the biggest scandal
in Australian political history,

especially if we're talking about Prime

Ministers, is 1975
and the dismissal of Gough Whitlam.

I mean, that's just no,
I don't think there's,

look, Scott Morrison has given that story
a run for its money

I think in, in terms of perhaps the,

the more sort of damaging effects
long term, Morrison's government might

Be. Interesting.

Might be, I think the more damaging one.

Do you get the sense that,

the reaction has been similar or different
between those two incidents,

the Morrison ministry's incident
and the 1975 constitutional crisis?

That's

I mean,
I think the, the longevity of the response

to the constitutional crisis
and still people

trying to figure out the role of the Queen
and the role of the Governor-General

and what have you, based on papers
that are being released, you know,

as we go, means that it has long term affect.

But I think it was so,

it just

seemed so unfair, I think, or so extreme
that I think

in a lot of ways
Australian politics has, has,

stayed away from that,

you know, the blocking of supply,
the kind of triggers that brought that on.

I don't know whether you would agree.

As for the Morrison government,

I mean, I think the antecedents for
that one are in the Howard government.

In terms of like spying on East Timor,
the Wheat

Board, controversy with Alexander Downer
and Iraq.

There are all kinds of that.

They're not again,
they're not about the prime ministers,

but they are about the government.

There's a whole lot of corruption.

So you see connections
between those scandals and Morrison's,

the Morrison, ministry scandal
during during Covid?

Yes. I think there's a kind of,

what's the word I'm looking for?

A willingness to bend the rules, that,
I mean, I don't think we saw it.

I mean, you know,
listeners might disagree.

Rudd had, for example.

I mean,
I don't think we saw it in between.

So, yeah, Kevin Rudd's government did have
the pink bats insulation

scandal, which was awful.

And several people died while,
you know, putting that insulation in,

but otherwise it's Ute gate and,

in Rudd's case, and Gillard

was accused of having embezzled funds
from one of the unions.

Yeah.

Utegate was entirely made up. Yeah.

And then, in the inquiry into Gillard's
behavior,

found no reason
to think that she had done anything wrong.

Those governments were not perfect,
we know that.

But, if you look at the array of things
that happened

in the slew of Liberal governments
before and after that,

It's hard to

sequence their prime ministers, it's true.

Yeah.

I think that it's a fairly scandalous era.

I mean, finishing with us,
finding out that Scott

Morrison had just taken on five ministries
for himself.

Yeah, that's outrageous

right? Yes yes yes yes yes. Yes.

I mean, some of the you know, being away
when the bushfires happened was a scandal.

That one is not, you know,

I mean, the man as he said,
he doesn't literally hold a hose.

It's not a good look for a leader,
you know, when you're the the prime minister

you have to give up some holidays.

Yes. The deal.

But it's not a it's not a, it's not a,

it's embarrassing for Morrison,

but the, the being away
from, Australia during the bushfires,

But it's not a constitutional

it's not an issue
of constitutional significance.

Whereas the holding
of multiple ministries is.

Yes. Yes. Largely because Morrison,

through his actions, they're

preventing the parliament from undertaking
its constitutional responsibilities

and being able to hold the government
to account. Yeah.

It's breaching conventions, that ensure,

the public can, can hold the government
to account and so on.

So, yeah, I agree with you.

It's it's, it's an order of magnitude
that's rather different.

Although his office did lie
about where he was.

Do you remember that
when he was in Hawaii? Yeah.

And that's not a good sign either.

No, I mean, Grover Cleveland has taught
us, if nothing else, tell the truth.

Yeah.
I mean, it's so often the cover up, right?

That's
that's the truism about, about scandals.

Scandal. Yeah. Yep, yep.

Just ask Mr. Clinton as well.
Yeah, indeed.

That's
what he gets impeached for ultimately.

Indeed.
Not not actually the offense.

He didn't inhale marijuana.

You know, he was asked didn't he?

Yes, he smoked it, but he didn't inhale.

I mean, he's such like,
he just can't admit anything.

Can he? yeah.

And he did not have sex with that woman.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. So.

But I am going to ask this question.

Go on then.

And because we asked a similar question
about America,

here's the provocative curveball about,
Australian political leaders,

who among them, or at least what era
was most scandalous in your view?

Well, having just
minned a whole bunch of Morrison,

issues,

actually, I think it's
John Howard and Philip Ruddock.

Okay.

And they are lying about children
overboard, just after the,

so first there was the Tampa affair,
and then there's the children overboard

where they lied about the reasons
Why the boat was picked up,

wasn't picked up,
and then used that to win an election.

And did so on the on

the backs of completely maligned,
refugees.

Yeah. People seeking refuge.

That's.

Yeah, I yeah, I reckon look, I'm
not an Australian historian.

We'll have one of those on soon.

Yes, but yes, I will ask.

Maybe we'll do a call back
and ask him what he thinks, but.

Yeah. Yeah, for me,
I think that's probably it.

Not least because it did cheapen
the or lower the standards

to which we as a nation
have kept, political leaders.

And they have lied in the past as well.

But that was so egregious.

And. Yeah,
and the tale of that has been so long,

so damaging for so many people.

I think for me that's one. Do you have a
do you have a judgment on which one

you think is the most scandalous?

I don't disagree with you,

you know that history better than me.

But one thing that,

I was, dwelling on is while you were

you were,
making that evaluation was the connection

between, lies
and our sense of the gravity of scandal.

You know, I think it's a thread
that ties together, serious scandal

and also scandal across
time and across country.

The public hates lying.

And furthermore, institutions,
can't function

well if officials tell lies, you know, so
if you kind of think of, well,

how do we set up our institutions,

to enable democracy, so many of them are
set up to prevent lying.

So it's a major offence.

Bye bye bye, norm
by convention, to lie in the House,

the the the Parliament.

So if if the Prime minister lies,

outside of the parliament,

someone will ask him in the parliament
to clarify.

And that's because they know

that lying in the Parliament carries
real significance.

You you're forced to correct the record
or to resign.

It's really those are the options.

So so lying is is is really bad
in the Australian context.

In the United States
context, lying can get you impeached.

And lying to Congress is an offence.

So, you know, ensuring truth is

is is key to, I think,

enabling a sort of transparency
that means that the,

the political process can manage
the actual events that are scandal.

Right?

So the, the, the,
the finance or whatever else.

But the lying is, is, is is the,
common thread that the system is trying

to unearth, and, and to try and remedy
to get at the truth of the actual event.

And that's why the public service

should be independent,
of course, of who is elected.

And so they can give literally frank
and fearless advice.

Yeah.

Which also means, you know, at base
truthful.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

We probably don't have time
to talk about robodebt.

Oh no. Yeah.

No. Probably raises questions
in that direction.

So another one on Morrison's watch.

Yes yes yes.

Yes. And one that made the public service
look quite bad.

Yeah. Yes.

And he's continuing to. Yeah. Okay.

So let's stay with this comparative focus
just as we're getting towards the end.

Do you see anything distinctive
about the scandals in Australia?

I mean, maybe we've sort of,

we've partly answer this, but scandals
in Australia, compared to those

in the United States or are
the scandals that we see

in these countries,
just a random sequence of events.

Yeah.

I think we've entered this

a little bit in the sense that I do
see connections in terms of lying

makes a potential scandal
or a small scandal into a big scandal.

I think that, the sorts of scandals
that happened in Australia are sometimes,

a little bit structured
by the kind of political system we have.

So the Morrison Ministry scandal

is a scandal precisely because this stuff
isn't well defined in law.

And, the office of prime minister,
the powers of prime minister,

the obligations of,

ministers vis-a-vis Parliament.

Many of these things
are defined in convention,

and that doesn't
make them any less important.

But it does mean that transparency
and honesty,

become really, really important
to the system's functioning.

Now, in the United States convention,
convention matters and norms matter,

but many processes of government
are more explicitly regulated by statute.

And that means that,
probably the Morrison Ministries

instance doesn't happen
because actually, there's there's

a really, like,
legally transparent way by which,

the allocation of, of, of ministries
happens.

And furthermore,

you know, the president can't intervene
in, the functioning of Congress

and its ability to deploy and do its work
in the way that Morrison did,

through the Morrison and through
the ministries example to the same extent.

Right, without without clarity,
without transparency and so on.

So I think there are there are some
differences to do with that

the importance of conventions in Australia

and there are less importance
in the United States.

But the executive can be
I mean, you know, the the president

can appoint people right, to the cabinet,
for example, who are not elected.

And absolutely. Yeah.

So the executive power is greater there.

And do you see the same kind of checks
on that power?

Well, I think if you're going to be,
a scandalous

political leader, apex leader,
probably your, your, your,

you're better off in Australia
than in, the United States.

And I say that
because, you know, the capacity of,

the executive
to manage the affairs of the legislature

is so much greater in Australia
because the executive sets

the agenda of the parliament,
the executive controls the,

career
incentives of people in the parliament.

Every one of the parliament
wants to be in,

the executive wants to be in the cabinet,
whereas in the United States, of course,

the cabinet, the executive
and the legislature are strictly divided.

You can't be a member of both. Right.

And therefore the the legislature
has incentives to challenge and check

the executive in ways that I don't think
exist to the same extent in in Australia.

I have read that
Jared Kushner made $300 million

while he was, in a role
appointed by Trump.

I mean, I'm

just going to throw that out there
and say, maybe it's better to be

in the United States
if you want to be a corrupt

member of the executive.

That's possibly true.

But, I in a sense,
that's I'm asking the question,

can the executive corrupt
the functioning of, of of the Congress?

Right.

And I think that's harder
for the executive to do in, in the,

United States than in Australia,
because the executive in Australia can

can be more secretive, can be more
and more manipulative of the Parliament

than the President can be of the Congress.

Congress, as it sees fit,
can assert itself in a way that I think

the Parliament sometimes struggles
in the Australian context of the cabinet.

All right.

We might take that one on notice.

I'm gonna have to do some research.

I'm, I'm I've reached
the end of my questions for you.

I've got no more questions for you.

Well, then that's it for us today
on presidential scandals.

Depending on how the rest of

the campaign goes,
we might have to come back to this topic.

Although it's only a couple of weeks left,
we're

typing this today on
what are we the 22nd of October?

Tuesday the 22nd.

So the next time we meet our topic,
assuming we are not diverted

by events, will be about the impact
of the campaign and perhaps, the result

in, you know, speculating
about the results

impact beyond the United States.

So that will be a bit of fun.

And we are hoping to have a guest
who will be a colleague of ours

in the Deakin School of Humanities
and Social Sciences.

Yes. Exciting.

So thank you for your interest
in Australian and American politics.

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See you next time! See you!