PoliticalGraveyard.com

Politicians in Trouble or Disgrace

Politicians in Trouble or Disgrace
Very incomplete!

Originally this section was a single page titled "Politicians who Died in Disgrace", but it became difficult to define that. Did Richard Nixon die in disgrace, when the President and other leaders praised him at his funeral? So I broadened the scope to "trouble and disgrace," and to include still-living figures.

In general, to qualify for listing here, mere rumor of lawbreaking is not enough. What's required is a public scandal, or some kind of formal action, such as censure, disbarment, impeachment, recall or expulsion from office, including resignation under fire; or some kind of brush with the criminal justice system, including arrest, indictment, conviction, or imprisonment. In a few cases uncontested evidence of wrongdoing emerged after death.

Note that not all of these people deserved the trouble they were in; sometimes charges were brought for purely political reasons, or they were prosecuted for simply acting on their principles. Robert Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence, ended up in debtor's prison because he went broke financing the American Revolution, for example, and George Crockett was jailed for doing what most lawyers would consider his ordinary job defending an unpopular client. Some were found not guilty or otherwise exonerated. Many other cases are not so clear; I just list them here and let history decide.

For your convenience, the list is provided alphabatically, chronologically, in offense categories, and state-by-state. Note that the same individual may appear in more than one offense category, state, or decade.

By Category of Offense:

Chronological by Decade:

By State or Outlying Area:

Alphabetical order:

"Enjoy the hospitable entertainment of a political graveyard." Henry L. Clinton, Apollo Hall, New York City, February 3, 1872

The Political Graveyard is a web site about U.S. political history and cemeteries. Founded in 1996, it is the Internet's most comprehensive free source for American political biography, listing 229,196 politicians, living and dead.
	The coverage of the site includes (1) the President, Vice President, members of Congress, elected state and territorial officeholders in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories; and the chief elected official, typically the mayor, of qualifying municipalities; (2) candidates at election, including primaries, for any of the above; (3) all federal judges and all state appellate judges; (4) certain federal officials, including the federal cabinet, diplomatic chiefs of mission, consuls, U.S. district attorneys, collectors of customs and internal revenue, and members of major federal commissions; and (5) state and national political party officials, including delegates, alternate delegates, and other participants in national party nominating conventions.
	The listings are incomplete; development of the database is a continually ongoing project.
	Information on this page — and on all other pages of this site — is believed to be accurate, but is not guaranteed. Users are advised to check with other sources before relying on any information here.
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Site information: The Political Graveyard is created and maintained by Lawrence Kestenbaum, who is solely responsible for its structure and content. — The mailing address is The Political Graveyard, P.O. Box 2563, Ann Arbor MI 48106. — This site is hosted by HDL. — The Political Graveyard opened on July 1, 1996; the last full revision was done on December 12, 2011.
Copyright notice: Facts are not subject to copyright; see Feist v. Rural Telephone. Original material, programming, selection and arrangement are © 1996-2011 Lawrence Kestenbaum. This work is also licensed for free non-commercial re-use, with attribution, under a Creative Commons License.