Poll: Most criminal major U.S. politicans (Was: Let's Pit Ralph)

The BBQ Pit
1

It was an impulse to Pit Ralph124c that caused me to open this thread. I do want to ask Ralph if he’s joking. I think that’s acceptable diction even in IMHO and ask the Mods to move the thread there, if no one has anything bad to say about Ralph.

LBJ, RMN, GWB, JFK’s father and several others probably had illicit business dealings. IANAL, have no idea how hard it would be to get a conviction in a court of law.; but I consider the issue of prosecutability moot: fraud or corruption is still fraud or corruption.

So. Just choosing from among very major U.S. politicans, who were the most criminal? I’ll start the nominations; let’s consider this the nomination/discussion thread and ask Zeldo to open a Poll thread later in IMHO. I’ll start with the most obvious nominations, 3 Pres, 2 V.P., 2 Secys of State :
[ul]
[li]Andrew Jackson - pogrom[/li][li]Bill Clinton - perjury[/li][li] Thomas Jefferson - slaveholding, adultery, statutory rape[/li][li]Dick Cheney - war crimes and corruption[/li][li]Spiro Agnew - pleaded no contest to criminal tax evasion[/li][li] Hillary Clinton - (I’m not sure what the charges are this time. Treason?)[/li][li] Henry Kissinger - war crimes[/li][/ul]

More nominations? Remember we’re concerned with criminality, though I think we should broaden the criteria to include malice.

This poll question is prompted by

Ralph? Was this just a whooosh? :rolleyes:

Hillary the Demok-Rat is not my favorite person. Perhaps Whitewater really was all about secret bribes and she did steal a fraction of what other major players have stolen. Perhaps Benghazi was payback when she tried to hold out from her Bulgarian blackmailer. What we do know is that the Clinton Administration allowed the GOP to spend several tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money; GOP couldn’t prove a thing, so switched to the adultery-perjury trap. That was 20 years ago, and they’re still going strong: Benghazi-Gate, Sticky-gate, Emailgate, Fostergate, Gategate and Gategate-gate.

As much as Hillary is not at the top of my list of favorite people, I do think she’s right: There is a right-wing conspiracy out to get them.

Ralph? Was this just a whooosh?

2

Well, to be fair, Ralph and another poster did get warned pretty quickly for that crap.

But hey, Nixon’s got to be in there somewhere.

3

Your definition of “criminality,” seems to include acts you feel should be criminal, regardless of whether they actually are (or were at the time of commission).

4

In the absence of an actual, you know, statute, I move for dismissal of the statutory rape charge against Thomas Jefferson. You might make a case for rape-rape.

5

We can start with the mishandling of classified information, which can be a felony.
We’ll likely add obstruction of justice before this is over, due to the wiping the server before it was turned over to the FBI.
As part of the Clinton Foundation, she’s likely a party to all sorts of financial shennanigans, such as fraud and income tax evasion.

6

We also have the problem that slavery was not against the law at the time. This is the classic error of trying to apply present laws to past situations.

ETA: I do think statutory rape would apply. As a slave, Sally Hemmings was legally a minor, and as such could not consent to sex.

7

Also, let’s not forget Aaron Burr (VP under Jefferson). He killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, and dueling was illegal by then.

8

Cite? I had never heard that slaves were legally minors. And in 1875, while each state had its own laws, I can’t find a single state in which the age of consent of was over 12.

9

Yes, let us start with that. Please identify the specific felony you believe Clinton committed.

10

I think we’re going to have a hard time beating Burr for “most criminal.” Especially since Burr was also arrested for treason.

11

Maybe the Ralph123 and lower models were better, but the 124c model is a right-wing, nitwit troll of the ignoramus order. And while we’re at it, has anyone seen him and Jinx in the same room at the same time?

12

Let me join in on questioning the Jefferson charges. Slavery is undoubtedly wrong but it wasn’t a crime at the time Jefferson was committing it.

And I don’t think he ever committed adultery. He apparently did not routinely have sex with his slaves. And his sexual relationship with Sally Hemings started years after Martha Jefferson’s death (Hemings was only eleven at the time of her sister’s death).

13

Is that the same as legitimate rape?

14

Ronald Reagan, for unilaterally abrogating U.S. treaties, and for Inran-Contra.

Nixon, not only for Watergate, but also for the Allende/Pinochet affair.

15

I feel like I’m missing something here. In what way does listing the sins of random historical figures constitute a response to ralph124c?

16

18 U.S.C. § 1924 possibly. I’m not sure if that is considered a felony or misdemeanor under federal law. The possible more serious charges seem to be more of a stretch because of the lack of intent.

17

It is a misdemeanor.

It also requires knowing removal of classified documents. I don’t know how that’s interpreted, but I would be quite surprised if you can be convicted if you did not know the documents were classified (much less that they should be classified, which AFAICT is all that has been alleged so far).

18

This is an all-around confusing thread. There’s no poll, only an attempt at a list. There’s no pitting of ralph. There isn’t really a pitting of anything (although sex with slaves doesn’t seem to be getting many up votes, so maybe we could throw in some more colorful language and pit that).

At least John Mace is trying to bring it, even if he’s being drowned out by Aaron Burr so far.

19

Tammany Hall.

Tammany was home to many corrupt politicians who made open deals with the leaders of street gangs and other violent groups of NYC thugs. The Gangs benefited by having the police pulled off of them by the politicians so they could operate their criminal enterprises more openly.
The politicians benefited from this because the gangs would beat /harass people to or from the polls in a way that kept the corrupt politicians both in office and from getting their hands dirty.
It was also how they were able to marginalize political opposition to The Machine and silence dissenting voices.

It would be hard to find an example today of such well organized and orchestrated corruption, spanning from Misdemeanor to Murder on even a small scale, let alone state wide.

I’m sure the rumors that Chris Christie dines regularly with Howard Stern are completely and totally false… and even if they weren’t, that this would be a complete and total coincidence.

20

How about that sick bastard Neil Goldschmidt, former sick bastard governor of Oregon. He swears up and down she looked 15 at the time, sick bastard.