Republican Political Scandals List

Declined to recuse himself from a Supreme Court case determining whether Donald Trump is immune from criminal charges stemming from his attempt to overturn the 2020 election despite the fact that his wife Ginni was intimately involved in the scheme to prevent Biden from becoming President

Promised to pardon his personal aide and "body man" Walt Nauta if he was convicted of lying to the FBI about his knowledge of Trump's illegal retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago if he becomes President again

Defamed voting technology company Smartmatic with bogus claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election and later secretly settled a lawsuit the firm brought against them for an undisclosed amount in order to avoid going to trial

Stole over $132,000 from multiple political accounts to pay for vacations with his family, housing costs and personal credit card statements by siphoning money from a loosely regulated political account that prosecutors alleged he used as his own "unregulated slush fund" into his own pocket

Reportedly lied about being shot during his deployment in Afghanistan when in reality he accidentally shot himself in the arm in a federal park

Drank so much alcohol at a political dinner and gala that servers cut her off and told her she couldn't have any more because she was noticeably drunk

Illegally voted in nine elections between 2008 and 2011 while he was on probation for a prior felony conviction and ineligible to vote in Georgia while also having hypocritically spread baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election and was later fined $5,000 and given a public reprimand by the judge overseeing his case

Ordered his personal aide and "body man" Walt Nauta and Mar-a-lago manager Brian Butler to transfer up to 15 boxes of likely classified information Trump illegally had in his possession to his residence in New Jersey at the very time representatives from the DOJ were meeting with his lawyers to get back the documents he illegally retained

Stole $9,657 in proceeds from an online auction of old government-owned vehicles

Remained closely tied to his namesake company which ended up raking in at least $7.8 million from 20 different foreign governments throughout his Presidency by having his sons run it instead of placing it in the hands of a neutral arbiter which violated decades of norms and traditions that were in place to prevent a President from profiting off the office

Masterminded a scheme to illegally conceal $2.1 million he earned in a three-month period for lobbying services he provided for the government of Qatar by creating an LLC with his coconspirator to hide the money from federal officials

Helped his coconspirator illegally conceal $2.1 million they earned lobbying for the government of Qatar by creating an LLC with to hide the money from tax authorities and then lied to federal officials twice after they confronted him

Spewed homophobic and racist taunts against two police officers who pulled him over on suspicion of DUI, failed a field sobriety test, refused to take a breathalyzer and then told the officers that he planned to contact the state Attorney General and to lie that he was mistreated by them unless they let him go

Accepted at least $55k in cash bribes and at least one trip to Miami on a private jet from who he thought were local businessmen that wanted preferential treatment for development projects in Cincinnati, Ohio but who were in fact undercover federal agents

Secretly sold up to $50,000 of Boeing shares mere days before a House committee he was on released a highly critical report about the company and then failed to disclose the sale for more than two months and only reported it after he won reelection by a mere 333 votes

Covered up the sexual coercion of a female staff member at Trump Bedminster by manipulating her into signing an unfavorable NDA for a "paltry sum" with huge financial penalties if she violated the terms

Pardoned a convicted drug smuggler who had connections with his son-in-law Jared Kushner's family after only serving two and a half years of his ten-year sentence and who was later arrested for assaulting his wife and father-in-law

Slandered a medical doctor during a TV interview in violation of two state rules and regulations governing how lawyers should conduct themselves and was publicly reprimanded by the Indiana Supreme Court for his behavior

Illegally obtained over $45,000 in Small Business Covid-Relief Funds out of $150,000 he applied for by claiming that dormant companies he owned with no employees actually had 6 employees and revenue of $800k and then lied to federal agents when they questioned him about it

Fraudulently claimed a 5-by-5-foot closet-sized space he rented for $5 a month was his official residence in order to run for office in a district he didn't actually live in

Shared top-secret and highly sensitive information about U.S. nuclear submarines including the number of nuclear warheads they can carry and how close they can get to Russian submarines without being detected with Australian billionaire and Mar-a-Lago member Anthony Pratt who went on to share what Trump told him with at least 45 other people including foreign officials, his employees and journalists over a year after he left the Presidency

Funneled at least $107,885 worth of campaign contributions into his personal accounts which he used to fund trips to Las Vegas, Napa Valley and other locations by creating a sham charity called the “United Latino Foundation” and enlisting his mother and close friend to help him transfer the money

Gave a highly classified binder of FBI documents relating to the 2016 Trump-Russia investigation to two sympathetic right-wing media personalities for propaganda purposes

Secretly flew on a private plane to attend events hosted by a right-wing organization which frequently argued cases before the Supreme Court and failed to disclose it which George W. Bush appointed judge John E. Jones III characterized as taking his "breath away" and noted that it would have resulted in a "disciplinary hearing" for any lower court federal judge

Compromised classified information on notecards used to brief him during phone calls with international leaders by using the backs to write every day to-do lists to his personal assistant who didn't have the security clearance required to access classified information and, unaware, also kept them in her unsecured office in Mar-a-Lago until eventually noticing classified markings and alerting the FBI

Secretly accepted a golf trip without reporting it as required by law in which a major Republican businessman flew him on a private jet to play a round and stay overnight at the Augusta National Golf Club (the most exclusive in the country) and soon after his administration gave his business $92 million in COVID relief funds to fund a major highway project

Accepted over $150,000 in cash and gifts including premium NY Mets season tickets, a discounted beachfront apartment, custom-made suit and a one-of-a-kind painting by an apprentice of Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí in exchange for helping his co-conspirators gain special access to top officials to get a leg up on various pet projects they had

Ordered a politicized impeachment inquiry to shamelessly smear President Biden with ridiculous claims to appease Donald Trump and House MAGA House extremists (with leverage to remove him as Speaker) and presumably to also distract from the myriad of real crimes committed by Trump and his associates

Opened a sham investigation into Jack Smith's prosecution of Donald Trump and his co-conspirators based on ridiculous claims from a lawyer involved in the case presumably to hinder it

Opened a baseless investigation into Georgia prosecutor who Fanni Willis who filed criminal charges against Donald Trump and 18 others presumably to deflect attention away from the many crimes Trump committed

Lied about receiving degrees from North Carolina Central University, Duke University Divinity School and Hood Theological Seminary when in fact he didn't receive a degree from any of them

Unsuccessfully solicited an illegal $1 million campaign contribution from executives with the Los Angeles Angels in exchange for giving them confidential information to help boost their negotiation position with the sale of their stadium and then lied to federal officials when they confronted him

Illegally transferred $91,000 from his campaign fund and a nonprofit organization to a PAC supporting his candidacy to help his failed 2016 bid for US Congress and then hid the transactions from the FEC

Violated ethics laws by financing a $267,230 recreational vehicle he couldn't otherwise afford due to debt through a wealthy health care executive of which both parties refused to disclose the terms of the loan presumably because they would appear to be overly favorable

Ordered a Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker to move and hide 64 boxes filled with highly classified and sensitive information after receiving a subpoena that ordered him to return all government documents in his possession

Pushed the IRS to open investigations on FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page in violation of a federal law that prohibits a President from "directly or indirectly" ordering the IRS to investigate or audit individual people

Conspired with former state House Speaker Larry Householder to accept $60 million in bribes from a state nuclear energy company that in turn was given a $1.3 billion taxpayer bailout for two struggling nuclear power plants it operated

Masterminded a bribery scheme that saw him illegally raking in a whopping $60 million from a state nuclear energy company that in turn was given a $1.3 billion taxpayer bailout for two struggling nuclear power plants it operated

Declined to recuse himself from an investigation into an addiction recovery center he accepted a $6,900 donation from when in a prior case he forced a judge to recuse themself for accepting a donation of only $250

Forged thousands of fake signatures over hundreds of petitions his third-party company conducted that the State AG charged were full of “obvious fraud” and done in such a “sophomoric” way that he misspelled people's names and cities and had signatures of people who were dead or had moved and then submitted them to candidates who contracted his services and proceeded to inadvertently submit the fraudulent petition signatures to election officials

Traveled free of charge on an opulent private jet chartered by billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer to an exclusive Alaskan fishing resort without reporting it on his financial disclosure forms and later voted with the majority in Singer's favor on a case involving his business

Personally lobbied to connect a business executive with prior criminal convictions for theft and fraud with the state comptroller overseeing a multimillion-dollar initiative meant to combat opioid overdoses despite him not having had any experience working on statewide public health initiatives

Illegally transferred $82.5 million from his state political action committee to a super PAC supporting his Presidential bid in violation of a federal campaign finance law that prohibits candidates from spending money that was obtained by people and groups not subject to strict federal requirements

Showed a classified map detailing a secret military operation he illegally retained when he left the White House to a staffer of his PAC after admitting that he shouldn't be showing it to anyone and telling the staffer not to get "too close" to it while meeting with him at his Bedminster golf club

Showed and discussed a top-secret military map that he illegally retained when he left the White House which laid out a "plan of attack" against Iran to a writer, publisher and two staffers who did not have security clearances at an insecure location at his Bedminster golf club

Hid boxes filled with classified and highly sensitive government documents after his boss Donald Trump was subpoenaed for them which were later found when the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago and then lied to federal agents when they questioned him about it

Ordered his personal aide and "body man" Walt Nauta to move and hide 64 boxes filled with highly classified and sensitive information after receiving a subpoena that ordered him to return all government documents in his possession

Stored top-secret and classified documents he illegally took with him to Mar-a-Lago at the conclusion of his term in his unsecured office, bathroom, bedroom, ballroom and storage room in plain view for tens of thousands of guests and potential US adversaries to see and lied to his own attorneys about his knowledge of any classified documents in his possession which resulted in his lawyer unwittingly submitting a false sworn certification of that fact to federal investigators

Removed more than a thousand pages of classified documents from the White House on Trump's orders and was seen putting them in the trunk of his car late at night on the final evening of his presidency

Weaponized his GOP committee by threatening FBI Director Christopher Wray with an unprecedented charge of contempt of Congress to get access to a document discredited as not reliable enough to pursue as part of a shameless political smear campaign and sham investigation against Joe Biden without regard to protecting the identities of redacted sources

Called and threatened multiple Texas State Reps with "political consequences" if they voted to impeach him for corruption

Spent $17,303 in campaign funds on personal expenses including family vacations, a professional baseball game, $2,400 worth of clothing and his children's cellphone bills and also failed to provide proper documentation for over $53,000 worth of meals he charged at taxpayers' expense

Pushed the Justice Department to keep open a political investigation looking into the Clinton Foundation long after it became abundantly clear no wrongdoing was found by investigators

Repeatedly slurred his speech and swayed back and forth as he led official proceedings as the Texas Speaker of the House in a way fellow Republican and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton described as "debilitating intoxication"

Drank alcohol "all day and night" despite having serious professional responsibilities including being a lawyer for Donald Trump according to his aide Noelle Dunphy who had a job to make sure he was a "functioning" alcoholic

Discussed classified and sensitive information with Donald Trump on speakerphone while his aide could hear and gave the same aide unfettered access to his email accounts that also contained confidential and highly sensitive information

Failed to report $100,000 in secret payments his wife accepted from a rightwing organization who filed a legal brief arguing to strike down a major part of the Voting Rights Act after which he joined a 5-4 majority doing just that

Defrauded a donor who gave him $535,200 to use on his campaign which he diverted to his personal business accounts instead and broke campaign finance laws by not disclosing it in a scheme multiple campaign finance experts called “unprecedented,” “stunning,” and “jaw-dropping”

Stole $159k from his election campaign and spent it on personal expenses by routing funds through a political consulting firm that in turn paid him over a series of transactions

Didn't report that the person who purchased a large property he owned -- nine days after he was sworn in as a Supreme Court Justice -- was the CEO of a major law firm that regularly argued for conservative causes before the Supreme Court

Refused to disclose which company he held as much as $25 million worth of stocks in on his legally mandated disclosure forms which makes it impossible for an average taxpayer to ever know if he favored this unknown company in his rulings

Violated the law by failing to disclose interviews that discussed his far-right views on gay rights, female contraception and other hot-button topics with Christian radio stations in paperwork he submitted to the Senate after Trump nominated him to become a federal judge

Drunkenly told police officers they had no idea “how bad you messed up" and claimed they "cannot detain" him because he was a state representative after getting arrested for ignoring repeated commands to leave a bar that had closed at 2am and could no longer have alcohol consumed on the premises

Deceived US Senators considering his nomination to become a federal judge by removing his name from a rightwing law review article he was the sole author of that openly criticized President Obama's policies towards vulnerable communities and replaced it with those of two colleagues at his legal group after Trump nominated him to become a federal judge

Slapped his legislative aide across the face and instructed him to go stand in a corner after he belligerently interrupted a conversation his aide was having with another woman

Didn't report the proceeds from the sale of family property to conservative donor Harlan Crow -- who then allowed Thomas's mother to continue living at rent-free for years -- on his public disclosure records as required by law

Accepted $110,200 in cash and other bribes including thousands of dollars' worth of sex with a prostitute and chartered flights from a businessman and two lobbyists in exchange for approving their medical marijuana business licenses during his time as chair of Michigan's marijuana licensing board

Expelled Democratic State Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson for a one-time rules infraction on the house floor during a gun safety protest whereas only two other members were expelled in the past 150 years for much worse offenses of bribery and sexual harassment

Secretly took luxurious trips over a twenty-year period without disclosing they were paid by ultra-wealthy conservative donor Harlan Crow which included multiple private jet flights, lavish vacations aboard a 162-foot mega yacht and luxury accommodations at resorts throughout the world

Helped Donald Trump avoid any accountability by asserting federal jurisdiction and ordering Manhattan DA CY Vance to "stand down" in his investigation into Donald Trump's secret payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the months before the 2016 Presidential election in a blatant attempt to prevent the damning details about Trump from becoming public

Misreported $3.5 billion that did not exist in South Carolina's yearly financial report due to a coding error that compounded for 15 years while he was in charge during which he once brandished an "Accounting for Dummies" book at a talk for new employees for dramatic effect and may explain why he ignored repeated warnings by auditors and waited five years to approve a recommended full review that finally uncovered the problem

Accepted two loans totaling $8 million for Trump Media from a shadowy entity closely associated with Russian oligarchs at the same time the company was on the verge of dissolution for lack of funding

Lied about being a "former member of law enforcement" who had a specialization in "international sex crimes" when in fact he was a volunteer reserve deputy who had zero involvement in sex trafficking cases and only lasted two years because he had made no progress in his field training and rarely showed up to required meetings

Lied to a judge about working for Goldman Sachs during a bail hearing for a friend who was accused of fraud

Gave Tucker Carlson exclusive access to 41,000 hours of January 6 insurrection footage captured by surveillance cameras throughout the Capitol complex despite the very real possibility that sensitive information pertaining to the security of the Capitol could be made public

Refused to publicly release a final report his own staff spent 10,000 hours on that debunked 2020 election conspiracy theories because it didn't back up his claim that the election was rife with fraud after he publicly claimed he had found "serious vulnerabilities" in the voting system which wasn't true

Swerved in and out of his lane at 2:30am while going nearly 20 mph over the speed limit and was found to have a BAC of over twice the legal limit after police pulled him over and then unsuccessfully tried to exploit his personal relationship with the arresting officer to get out of trouble, which is especially egregious as he was a former sheriff's deputy who served on his legislature's "Public Safety" committee

Lied about earning a second bachelors degree in economics from Middle Tennessee State while also publicly asserting "I'm an economist" on numerous occasions

Accepted over $280k in kickbacks from a local excavation company in exchange for approving over $700k in invoices for purported road work they never performed over an eight-year period

Retaliated against four staffers who reported his alleged corruption to the FBI by maligning them as "rogue employees" and fired or forced them out through other means and later spent $3.3 million in taxpayer dollars to settle a wrongful termination lawsuit which also forced him to apologize for disparaging them

Granted Melania Trump access to the White House Situation Room during a highly secretive US military raid targeting an ISIS leader in a clear breach of rules prohibiting people who lack the proper security clearance from entering the room

Spent over $2 million in taxpayer dollars investigating ludicrous claims of voter fraud in the 2020 Presidential election and quietly closed the investigation after failing to find any credible instances of fraud

Illegally spent over $100,000 in campaign contributions on personal expenses and then tried to cover it up by filing numerous false tax returns

Illegally accepted over $25,000 in campaign contributions from a single family member far exceeding the $5,600 legal limit per person

Repeatedly injected himself into special counsel John Durham's political investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia scandal in order to help Trump and discredit his detractors which led to his second in command resigning in protest and another taking a new job outside of the investigation

Swerved in and out of her lane after 1:00am and soon after refused to take a breathalyzer and field sobriety tests after police reported smelling an "overwhelming alcoholic odor" along with her bloodshot eyes and then namedropped her politically affiliated boss and the local sheriff in an apparent attempt to get out of trouble

Illegally submitted dozens of phony voter registrations, absentee ballot requests and absentee ballots from members of the Vietnamese community in her district in the 2020 Iowa Republican primary in an attempt to help her husband Jeremy Taylor's campaign for the US House

Illegally coordinated with the leader of a Republican state PAC to pay an opposition research firm $52,000 to investigate the Democratic candidate for governor in violation of state law barring PACs from working with local and state political parties

Filled out and submitted eight absentee ballots for unwitting voters without their knowledge or consent by taking advantage of his position on a local elections board to access their voter information

Allowed a top campaign aide to impersonate GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy's chief of staff in calls soliciting money from wealthy donors in both the 2020 and 2022 election cycles

Suspiciously listed 37 campaign expenses on purchases like a hotel stay in Miami and other travel expenses as costing $199.99 -- one cent below the legally binding $200 threshold that required itemized receipts -- on his campaign finance forms

Cashed in between $628,000 and $1.72 million in stocks from companies seen as vulnerable to the burgeoning COVID-19 outbreak over a series of 33 separate transactions after receiving confidential briefings as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee

Voted using his former invalid address instead of the one he actually lived at in a different county 60 miles away in the 2022 primary, general and U.S. Senate runoff elections

Lied about earning degrees in economics and finance from Baruch College and New York University when in fact he hadn't earned any college degree at all

Lied about working for Goldman Sachs and also Citigroup as an "associate asset manager" of which both companies confirmed they had no information of him ever working for them

Shared an image taken from a highly secretive spy satellite that could have helped adversaries better understand US spy capabilities to his Twitter followers

Personally fired two Washington Commanders cheerleaders after they accused an NFL player of sexual misconduct and falsely blamed the incident on the victims instead of the player responsible

Twice voted from a county he wasn't registered to vote in while keeping his primary residence in another county in violation of state law while also being a vocal law & order candidate who subscribed to the conspiracy theory that there was fraud in the 2020 election

Was found visibly drunk in the driver's seat of his vehicle with the engine running outside of a bar and was arrested after he failed a field sobriety test, but not before he unsuccessfully attempted to get out of trouble by falsely asserting that the state legislator was in a special session and he was therefore immune from prosecution