(WWJ) – Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday became the first U.S. president ever arraigned on criminal charges.
Trump pleaded guilty to 34 felony charges Tuesday afternoon in Manhattan. Prosecutors allege he conspired to illegally influence the 2016 election through a series of “hush money” payments centered around alleged affairs with porn star Stormy Daniels former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
While Tuesday’s arraignment represented an unprecedented moment in U.S. history, political historian and author Rich Rubino tells WWJ’s Ryan Wrecker in an interview four other presidents have been accused of illegal activity while in office.
In the 1920s Warren G. Harding was a popular president, having won the 1920 election in “one of the biggest landslides in American history.”
“But it also came to light that there was what was called Teapot Dome,” Rubino said. “Essentially there were scandals within the administration involving the leasing of public lands, one of which was called Teapot Dome in Wyoming.”
After Harding died in 1923, he became “almost a tribune of political scandal to the point that when someone mentions the words ‘Warren G. Harding,’ the first thing people think of is Teapot Dome and scandals,” Rubino said.
In his interview, Rubino details President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal, which led to his impeachment, the Iran-Contra scandal under President Ronald Raegan and Bill Clinton’s Whitewater land deal scandal and the Monica Lewinsky controversy that led to his impeachment.
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