In another thread there is discussion about Trump being arrested, with people saying that it won’t happen even if he broke the law, and it is implied because of how important the office is.
Putting aside politics though, what are the highest ranking (there can be multiple) politicians or judges who have been arrested or imprisoned?
Several state governors have gone to prison.
John Edwards (VP to Kerry in the 2004 presidential run) was indicted but acquitted
Dennis Hastert (speaker of the house) imprisoned
Aaron Burr. vice president, arrested for being in a duel but never convicted)
I don’t think the US has ever put an ex-president in prison, but we’ve arrested people who have either served as VP or ran as VP on major party platforms before. Don’t know if any VPs have ever been convicted or imprisoned though. Not sure if any senate minority or majority leaders have been arrested the way we’ve imprisoned ex-speaker of the house politicians.
What about judges? Have any supreme court or appellate judges been arrested or imprisoned? I know on the state level (WV state) supreme court judges have been arrested and imprisoned but I don’t know about federal judges.
Spiro Agnew pleaded no contest to a felony charge of tax evasion. He was sentenced to probation and a fine rather than any jail time. He also resigned as Veep.
Are you limiting the question to the US? If not, are you excluding coups and revolutions? Because deposed leaders get indicted, imprisoned, and worse all the time. Romania’s President Nicolae Ceaușescu was famously arrested, tried, and executed within the span of a few days. The trial was a sham but at least maintained the pretence of legality. Many former heads of government and heads of state of Eastern-bloc countries were similarly arrested, tried, and convicted in the early 1990s, though those cases were generally handled with a greater measure of due process and did not end in executions.
Harry Claibornewas the first judge ever impeached and removed for crimes specifically committed while he was sitting as a judge. Claiborne was convicted of tax evasion (not reporting his bribes) and sent to prison. He refused to resign from his judgeship and was actually in a Federal prison when the House voted 406-0 to impeach. He managed to get a handful of not guilty votes in the Senate, but was convicted on three out of four counts.
Walter Nixon was impeached and removed from office for perjury in front of a grand jury. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
There were several other judges like Alcee Hastings and Thomas Porteous who were impeached and removed from office but not convicted of a crime, and others, like Otto Kerner and Samuel Kent, who were convicted of crimes but resigned before they could be impeached.
As for governors, IL is notorious. Four of six consecutive governors spent time in prison. The most (in)famous was Rod Blagojevich who attempted to sell a senate seat vacated when Obama resigned to move to the White House. I know a number of members of HR have moved to the big house too.
I’m limiting it to the US. I know in South Korea their ex-president is currently in prison.
In developing countries it isn’t uncommon to put an ex leader in prison or kill them. But in developed democracies it happens less often, but still happens.
To my knowledge no US president has ever been arrested or imprisoned. VPs have been arrested and one convicted, but none have gone to prison. However we’ve put governors, senators, speakers of the house and state supreme court judges in prison.
In the United States, we seem to have a strong ethic of not throwing prior or opposing political leaders in jail because in the United States, we just don’t do things that way.
OTOH, that also implies that we don’t imprison or even prosecute prior or opposing political leaders no matter how much it might appear warranted, because we don’t want to create even the appearance of throwing prior or opposing political leaders in jail just because of politics.
Big precedent from fairly recent history was Gerald Ford’s pardon of Nixon (which was widely considered to have cost Ford the following election).
It seems quite plausible that Trump will be treated likewise.
Sen. Joseph Burton of Missouri, convicted of accepting payments to intercede with a Federal agency. Burton resigned from the Senate before it could vote on his expulsion.
Interior secretary Albert Fall was convicted of accepting bribes in the Teapot Dome scandal. Cabinet members don’t have to be impeached; Fall went to prison.
But why does it have to be partisan, ideally the justice dept should be above politics. When John Edwards was prosecuted it wasn’t seen as revenge by the Bush administration.
Tom Delay (R-TX22) was House Majority Leader - arguably the second most powerful person in Congress - and indicted on campaign finance issues while in office. He resigned his position and eventually didn’t run for re-election.
President Grant received a speeding ticket for riding his horse too fast, and may have been arrested for it. The historical record is a bit murky on that point.