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Executive privilege n. The principle that members of the executive branch of government cannot legally be forced to disclose their confidential communications when such disclosure would adversely affect the operations or procedures of the executive branch.
—from the American Heritage ® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
executive privilege(s)™ n. The principle that members of the executive branch of government, and their families and friends, cannot be expected to live by the same rules that folks like the rest of us do … because hey, this is the president and his friends and family we’re talking about!
—from Gregg Stebben and Austin Hill, "a couple of jealous smart-asses"
When the President (and His Lawyers) Hide behind “Executive Privilege,” It’s Often a Butt-Covering Move of Dramatic Proportions
And to you, our faithful reader, the two words Executive Privilege should be the sign of some wonderfully entertaining, fast-talking, fast-changing, history-revising, buck-passing madcap adventures to come from the White House.
After all, if you were the president and you knew you did nothing wrong, why would you bother invoking Executive Privilege?
Birds do it, bees do it … but not all presidents do it
* * *
Just in case you’re wondering, there has been at least one president who lost not a single staff member or member of his administration to an indictment or scandal-related resignation.
Ironically, it was FDR, who also served almost twice as long as any other president.
SELFISH SECRETS VS. SELFLESS SECRETS
The Constitution clearly spells out the powers to be possessed by each branch of the federal government, and the phrase Executive Privilege doesn’t appear anywhere in the Constitution.
In fact, apart from mandating that the president must report to the congress on the “State of the Union” once a year, the Constitution doesn’t really say ANYTHING about what kind of information the president has to divulge.
Hmmm.
Well, that’s kind of a problem, isn’t it? After all, even cynical authors like ourselves can imagine times when the president might know something that was best sheltered from all but a few members of Congress and the public, like, say:
• Matters of national security
• Matters that might adversely affect the economy
• Stupid stuff that shouldn’t matter
On the other hand, we can also imagine lots of times when the president might be tempted to invoke Executive Privilege for all the wrong reasons: you know, like to cover his own butt, or to cover the butt of a family member or a political or personal friend.
Q: “Who was the first President to invoke Executive Privilege?”
a. Richard Nixon
b. Bill Clinton
c. Ray Akers
d. Thomas Jefferson
e. George Washington
(Go to the next page to discuss!)
Discussion Group Guide on the Question: “Who Was the First President to Invoke Executive Privilege?”
We can just see the wheels turning in your brain as you stew on this.
It’s gotta be Richard Nixon, right?
After all, until he came along all our presidents were little angels.
No, maybe it’s Bill Clinton.
Didn’t he invent the whole concept of Executive Privilege, right after he invented the whole concept of multiple definitions of the word is?
No, no, no … it’s gotta be George Washington.
After all, he was the first president (sort of, see Appendix C: the “George Washington Conspiracy” on page 337), and he must have needed it to protect himself when he otherwise would have had to tell a lie at a time when telling the truth would have been dangerous for this new nation and the American people. And you know that George Washington never told a lie (except, perhaps, in the case of the “George Washington Conspiracy,” which is on page 337).
Well, the one guy it couldn’t be was Thomas Jefferson—he just wouldn’t do that!
And besides … what would Thomas Jefferson ever have to hide?
Answer to the Question:
Q: So, who was the first president to invoke “Executive Privelege”?
A: IT WAS THOMAS JEFFERSON.
And what did HE have to hide? Well, we’re not sure, because he invented the concept of Executive Privilege and then used it to keep what he knew a secret. And it’s still a secret, even to this day.
But what happened was that he was subpoenaed to testify and present documentation in the treason trial of his own vice president, Aaron Burr.
Of course, it could have been worse. Jefferson could have been subpoenaed to testify and present documentation in a murder trial against his own vice president after Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, but Burr never stood trial for the murder, which everyone knew he committed.
AND WHEN EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE IS NOT ENOUGH
After Vice President Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, he didn’t feel he needed to invoke Executive Privilege to protect himself.
Why?
Well, even though he was charged with murder in New York (where Hamilton died) and was charged and acquitted in New Jersey (where the actual duel occurred), he knew that if he immediately raced to Washington, D.C., following the duel, neither New York nor New Jersey would have the legal right to extradite him.
So off to D.C. he ran, and served out his term as vice president and president of the US Senate as if the murder of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton had never happened.
WHAT THE PRESIDENT DIDN’T SAY … AND WHEN HE DIDN’T SAY IT:
GEORGE WASHINGTON:
After General Arthur St. Clair led an expedition against American Indian tribes along the Ohio River in which an entire division was lost, a congressional committee requested information about the tragedy from Washington. Initially, he wasn’t sure how to respond and, depending on how he responded, what kind of legal precedent might be set.
So Washington called a meeting of his cabinet, closed the door behind them, and started asking them questions—and he didn’t take any notes.
Fortunately, Thomas Jefferson wrote about the meeting in his personal diary, which is how we know about it today.
Apparently, according to Jefferson, the cabinet members agreed that the Congress had the right to request information from the president, and that the president “ought to communicate such papers as the public good would permit & ought to refuse those the disclosure of which would injure the public.”
As for the immediate situation, the cabinet agreed that “there was not a paper which might not be properly produced,” so President Washington handed over the information that Congress was asking for, and that was that.
Then George Washington faced a Congressional request in 1794 to see the president’s correspondence with his ambassador to France … because the ambassador to France was suspected of aiding the French aristocrats against the revolutionaries despite the United States’ official stance of neutrality in the French Revolution. Washington handed over the letters, but not without censoring them first.
And a year later, in 1795, Congress asked for information about a treaty being negotiated with Great Britain. This time, however, Washington flat-out told them “no,” and he explained that the House of Representatives had no constitutional authority to participate in negotiating treaties and thus did not need to see any information about it.
This didn’t quite qualify as invoking Executive Privilege, however. It was more a case of clarifying the rules of the game. (Besides, as you are about to see, Jefferson hadn’t “invented” Executive Privilege yet.)
THOMAS JEFFERSON:
Not only did he invent the dumbwaiter, and the first copy machine, and baked Alaska, he also invented Executive Privilege. Jefferson knew stuff about his Veep Aaron Burr, that rat fink (and murderer and traitor), that he didn’t want to talk about, so he cooked up the whole “Executive Privilege” concept as a way to justify withholding information.
By the way, Jefferson was the first president to use Executive Privilege a second time, too, which he did when he and his secretary of state, James Madison, tried to get Congress to give them $2 million to buy some Florida swamp lands from the Spanish before the French could get their hands on it.
As for why Jefferson and Madison wanted to keep the deal a secret from Congress, well, that’s a story we’ll save for our next book, US Foreign Policy: Confidential.
ANDREW JACKSON:
In 1832 when Andrew Jackson set out to destroy the Second Bank of the United States, he had a clash with Congress over demands for info. Jackson believed that his political opponents’ demands amounted to petty partisan harassment, so he used Executive Privilege to resist their demands for information.
GROVER CLEVELAND:
He refused to hand over files to Congress pertaining to presidential appointments because he believed the requests were politically motivated.
There are only two occasions when Americans respect privacy, especially in Presidents. Those are prayer and fishing.
—HERBERT HOOVER
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER:
Ike to Congress: “Yes, I’ve got a secret … but I’m not telling!” Before President Eisenhower’s days in the White House, presidents were almost always willing to cough up a good reason why they should be allowed to withhold information and “keep secrets.”
And they had some great reasons, too: they needed to safeguard foreign policy discussions; they needed to “keep the confidence” of certain people and groups; “innocent people” might get hurt; or maybe they just wanted to avoid getting into big nasty political fights. (Okay, maybe that last reason was kind of lame, but you could still see why it would be important to the president). Eisenhower, on the other hand, really wanted to expand the president’s ability to withhold information from Congress.
Why?
Because following World War II, the Cold War era seemed to require that the presidency be allowed to function with more secrecy, given the threat of Soviet dominance in the world. Or to say it another way, it seemed to be necessary for the presidency to function as though it were at war, even though the war was, well, “cold.”
On May 17, 1954, President Eisenhower sent a letter to his secretary of defense instructing department officials to not cooperate with the Congress in their demands for information regarding the investigation of the army by Senator Joseph McCarthy. And since most Americans took the Cold War seriously, and since many in the Congress didn’t like the infamous Senator McCarthy, nobody complained too much about Eisenhower’s secrecy.
Later in the Eisenhower presidency, his attorney general William Rogers would officially use the term Executive Privilege for the first time. And before he left office, President Eisenhower would have asserted Executive Privilege no fewer than forty times.
“Don’t worry, Jim. If it comes up, I’ll just confuse them.”
—PRESIDENT EISENHOWER TO HIS PRESS SECRETARY, JUST BEFORE A PRESS CONFERENCE
JFK & LBJ:
Despite the fact that Eisenhower managed to get away with dramatically strengthening the presidency, some in Congress didn’t like all this Executive Privilege secrecy stuff. So, beginning with the Kennedy administration, Congress began a new precedent of sending the president a formal letter and asking for his official policy on Executive Privilege.
President Kennedy wrote back, explaining that Executive Privilege can be invoked only by the president (as opposed to other members of the executive branch). President Johnson similarly replied that only the president would assert Executive Privilege.
RICHARD NIXON:
Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time … .
When President Nixon got that Executive Privilege letter from Congress, he responded in the greatest detail, stating that “the scope of executive privilege must be very narrowly construed. Under this Administration, executive privilege will not be asserted without specific presidential approval … I want open government to be a reality in every way possible.”
But when the Senate began investigating Watergate, things really got ugly. Nixon at that point began using the assertion of Executive Privilege as a means to prevent his aides from testifying before Congress, and to avoid handing over his now-famous White House tape recordings.
“I don’t give a shit what happens. I want you all to stonewall it, let them plead the Fifth Amendment, cover-up, or anything else, if it’ll save it—save the plan. That’s the whole point.”
—RICHARD NIXON, ON ONE OF HIS INFAMOUS WATERGATE TAPES, WHICH HE TRIED TO KEEP FROM CONGRESS BY INVOKING EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE
GERALD FORD:
When that congressional letter arrived asking about his “official policy” on Executive Privilege, he didn’t even answer it.
Why?
Because he realized that the terms Executive Privilege and Watergate had become synonymous in the minds of many Americans, so rather than offer an official policy on the matter, he chose to handle information-withholding matters on a case-by-case basis.
JIMMY CARTER:
Oddly enough, Jimmy Carter didn’t address the issue of Executive Privilege until just days before he lost reelection.
RONALD REAGAN:
The first Reagan-era assertion of Executive Privilege came in 1981, before Reagan’s administration had offered an official position on Executive Privilege.
Congress had asked Reagan’s Interior Secretary James Watt for some documentation on environmental matters, and Watt refused, claiming that they were highly “sensitive.”
This turned in to a political fiasco, so finally the administration orchestrated a “compromise” and after nearly two years in office, issued an official document outlining its position on executive privilege.
And that position was?
That they were committed to complying with congressional information requests, but that some communications needed to remain confidential.
GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH:
He only invoked it once, to protect his defense secretary Dick Cheney when documents were subpoenaed during a congressional investigation into a Navy aircraft program.
BILL CLINTON TRAVEL-GATE!:
In 1996, President Clinton claimed Executive Privilege in withholding documents subpoenaed during the investigation of the firing of White House travel office workers in 1994. Attorney General Janet Reno offered her legal opinion, agreeing with the president that it was a legitimate use of Executive Privilege.
MONICA-GATE!:
In 1998, President Clinton invoked Executive Privilege and attempted to block prosecutors from questioning his senior aides in the independent counsel investigation of “obstruction of justice” claims.
HILLARY-GATE!:
In 1999, President Clinton extended clemency to sixteen members of a Puerto Rican nationalist group, people who were considered to be terrorists, and to be dangerous, by the federal government. Congress asked to review documents concerning the individuals granted clemency, and Clinton rejected the request, claiming Executive Privilege.
Many of President Clinton’s foes argued that by extending this clemency, the president was sacrificing national security for the sake of “kissing ass” with New York’s large population of citizens who are of Puerto Rican descent—and that this was an attempt to “buy Puerto Rican votes” for his wife’s senate campaign.
“You know, the clock is running down on the Republicans in Congress, too. I feel for them. I do … They’ve only got seven more months to investigate me.
That’s a lot of pressure. So little time, so many unanswered questions. For example, over the last few months, I’ve lost ten pounds. Where did they go? Why haven’t I produced them to the independent counsel? How did some of them manage to wind up on Tim Russert [the host of NBC’s Meet the Press]?
—BILL CLINTON AT HIS LAST WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ DINNER AS PRESIDENT, POKING FUN AT HIS OWN ABILITY TO GET HIMSELF IN TROUBLE AS WELL AS THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESS’S DETERMINED EFFORTS TO CATCH HIM AND NAIL HIM WHENEVER THEY COULD
GEORGE W. BUSH:
In early 2001, Bush stated publicly that he wanted to put an end to the various Clinton scandal investigations … and then he refused to hand over documents to Congress when it sought to subpoena records concerning Department of Justice decision-making by Bill Clinton’s Attorney General, Janet Reno.
When President Bush chose Harriet Miers (more on her later) as a Supreme Court nominee, he was asked by both Republicans and Democrats to hand over information about meetings and consultations with her. He refused, claiming that such things needed to remain private since she had at one time been his own personal attorney.
In an incident involving Vice President Dick Cheney, the vice president refused to hand over information about who was in attendance at various meetings of his “energy task force.” The Veep didn’t use the words Executive Privilege when defending his withholding of information, but nonetheless he used legal language that looked a lot like a defense of Executive Privilege. Cheney’s actions were also a break from the common understanding that Executive Privilege is intended for the president and only the president. Bush foes were incensed at this attempt to cover up who was part of the Bush administration’s “energy task force,” given the president and vice president’s close ties to the oil and energy industry before taking office.
BARACK OBAMA:
The Obama administration invoked Executive Privilege to prevent the release of certain documents to Congress related to Operation Fast and Furious, which was the failed arms-trafficking sting where federal agents lost track of hundreds of guns sold to suspected gun smugglers, with many of the guys later turning up at Mexican crime scenes.
In January 2016, at the time of this writing, the administration’s claim of Executive Privilege was rejected by a federal judge.
BEING THE PRESIDENT, OR THE PRESIDENT’S FRIEND, OR A FAMILY MEMBER … AND GETTING AWAY WITH ALL KINDS OF STUFF BECAUSE OF IT?
Priceless.
FOR EVERYTHING ELSE …
THERE’S EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE(S)™.
Hey, stuff happens.
Even to presidents. And their friends. And their families.
We know that; we’re understanding guys.
And that’s why, in the course of writing this book, we invented the “Executive Privilege(s)™ card” … because there are times (like the following examples) when a chief executive (or someone close to him) does something kind of dumb but not TOO serious, that doesn’t necessarily or gravely affect national security, domestic policy, or other matters of great import, but it’s serious enough that he needs the equivalent of a “Get Out of Jail Free” card with a whopping-high credit limit to get himself (or the friend or family member) out of trouble when they’ve done something really stupid.
“WE JUST DROPPED THE BOMB ON RUSSIA … NEWS AT 11”
It was the middle of the Cold War, and President Reagan told us Russia was the “Evil Empire.”
And then one day in 1984, while preparing for his weekly radio addresses, without realizing the microphone in front of him was on, the president made a clever joke of an announcement to amuse himself:
“My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”
This little “joke” caused an immediate alteration in the “DEFCON” (Defense Condition) level and created one of the tensest moments of the entire Cold War.
U.S. PRESIDENT TO ENTIRE NATION OF AUSTRALIA:
“F**K YOU!”
While visiting Australia, President Richard Nixon wanted to get off Air Force One looking very statesman-like, so he did something he had seen Winston Churchill do many times during World War II: he flashed the “peace sign.”
What Nixon didn’t know was that in Australia, there are a couple of different meanings for what he knew as the “peace sign.”
In Australia, when the gesture is offered with the palm of one’s hand pointing outward, it means “peace.” But when the sign is displayed with the palm facing inward, as Nixon did it, it means “f**k you” or “f**k off” … which was the message President Nixon sent to awaiting Australian dignitaries and the entire nation of Australia by television as he deplaned from Air Force One with a smile on his face and one offending hand gesturing enthusiastically.
FOUR ABOVE THE LAW…
Sometimes, presidents need to pull out their mighty Executive Privilege(s)™ card and literally use it as a “Get-Out-of-Jail-Free” card:
• As president, William Howard Taft once got caught picking flowers outside the Department of Agriculture building, and he would have been arrested if the watchman hadn’t recognized him and let him go.
• When LBJ got busted for speeding while in Texas, the officer gasped and said, “Oh, my God!” when he realized who he had pulled over … to which LBJ replied: “And don’t you forget it.”
• President Franklin Pierce (who was famous for having a drinking problem) was once arrested for running an old woman down on the streets of Washington in his carriage, but he could never be proven guilty, so the case was closed.
• After a police officer pulled Ulysses S. Grant over for using excessive speed while traveling through Washington D.C. in a horse and carriage, the officer decided not to write the president a ticket. Grant, on the other hand, insisted that the officer do his duty and issue the ticket anyway.
… And One for Under The Table
Warren Harding loved to serve his friends lots of hard liquor during their infamous weekly White House poker games, and no one thought it was a problem, even though Harding was president during Prohibition when the possession of alcohol was a crime.
And for One President a “Get-INTO-Jail” Card
Of course, nobody likes being criticized, but President John Adams was particularly sensitive about it. Which may be one reason why he signed into law the “Alien & Sedition Acts,” which made it possible for anyone who was critical of the government to be thrown into jail.
VEEP GETS DRUNK WITH POWER (OR JUST GETS DRUNK)
According to Senator William Stewart of Nevada, who was there at the time:
He (Vice President–elect Andrew Johnson) came to Washington in January or February, 1865, and for some weeks previous to the inauguration of President Lincoln on the 4th of March, 1865, his general condition was a half-drunken stupor. When he entered the Senate chamber to take the oath of office as Vice President, and to call that body to order, he was very drunk. He was assisted to the chair by the Sergeant-at-Arms and two door-keepers, and was unable to stand without assistance. I do not believe he was conscious when he took the oath of office.
Immediately after the oath had been administered, he grasped the desk before him with an unsteady hand, and, swaying about so that he threatened to tumble down at any moment, he began an incoherent tirade … Finally he was removed, not without some force, by the Sergeant-at-Arms to the Vice-President’s room, where he was detained until the ceremony was concluded.
And now, for the official White House spin on the story:
Johnson was sick with typhoid fever, took a few slugs of whiskey to get him through the ceremony, and it went straight to his head.
I have known Andy Johnson for many years; he made a bad slip the other day, but you need not be scared; Andy ain’t a drunkard.”
—ABE LINCOLN
IF IT’S THE “PEOPLE’S HOUSE,” DOESN’T THAT MEAN THEY’RE ALSO THE “PEOPLE’S DISHES”?
When folks like you or us play a little poker, we use the money in our wallet, then the money in our bank accounts, then the good credit extended to us on our credit cards. And then, if we’re crazy enough, we start betting things like the deeds on our houses.
Unfortunately, in his weekly poker games with his “poker cabinet,” President Warren Harding couldn’t bet his house, because he lived at the White House.
So he did the next best thing: in a single hand, he bet and lost an entire set of White House china that dated back to the presidency of Benjamin Harrison. The value of the dishes, of course, was probably priceless.
You might also be interested to know that when Congress refused to give John Tyler’s wife Julia any money to redecorate the White House, she decided to use her own money to add her own style of “flub-dubs” to the place.
FURNITURE-GATE?
Look, we think it’s kind of silly too, but back in the early days of the presidency, every president had his own “Presidential Furniture Fund” which was granted by Congress to enable the president to—what else?—buy furniture.
Now, to be fair, this was after the British burned the White House to the ground, so as silly as it sounds now, it actually made sense at the time. And believe it or not, the “Presidential Furniture Fund” was the source of several “grand” scandals:
The Real Reason Why U.S. Presidents Never Shop at Ikea:
It all started with Dolley Madison, who spent forty dollars to buy an imported mirror for the White House. Members of the Senate were furious and launched an investigation that cost several thousand dollars to complete.
So, why were members of the Senate so upset? Well, it wasn’t because of the forty-dollar price tag on the mirror. It was because Dolley had dared to buy a decoration for the White House that had been imported from another country.
Can You Say “Travel-Gate,” President Monroe?
James Monroe got in trouble over the “Presidential Furniture Fund” when he borrowed money from the fund to pay for some presidential travel.
Okay, maybe this wasn’t so bad, except that Monroe’s enemies accused him of using the money to finance trips that were made for Monroe’s own political gain.
“It would stink in the nostrils of the American people to have it said the President of the United States had approved a bill over-running an appropriation of $20,000 for flub-dubs for this damned old house, when the soldiers cannot have blankets.”
—ABE LINCOLN TO WIFE MARY, AFTER FINDING OUT SHE HAD EXCEEDED HER CONGRESSIONAL $20,000 WHITE HOUSE DECORATING BUDGET BY $6,700
Mrs. Lincoln Fibs about Flub-Dub
Not only did Mary Todd Lincoln get caught going over her Congressional decorating budget when buying “flub-dubs” for the White House, she also intentionally overcharged the government on her White House expense account.
Of course, we must caution you not to try this at home (or at work!), but here’s how she did it:
While preparing a state banquet for France’s Emperor Napoleon III she billed the Interior Department nine hundred dollars, when in fact the event only cost three hundred dollars. And here’s how she did it again:
When the secretary of the interior rejected these charges, Mrs. Lincoln had a gardener fake a bill for plants and flowers; then she certified the bill herself, and pocketed the excess money.
All this was bad news for poor “Honest Abe” Lincoln, of course, particularly as the Civil War was raging on and many in the Union were making tremendous personal sacrifices for the good of the country.
JACKIE KENNEDY KILLS THE $45,000-A-YEAR MYTH
While Jack Kennedy was campaigning for the presidency, the owner and publisher of Women’s Wear Daily reported that the candidate’s wife Jackie spent $45,000 per year on clothes.
Jackie, of course, knew the truth and replied, with typical wit and aplomb: “I couldn’t do that without wearing sable underwear!”
But when she moved into the White House and became the First Lady, her clothing allowance, in fact, escalated to $121,000 in the year 1962 alone!
FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH
Nancy Reagan had quite an appetite for nice clothes too, but she didn’t have access to the same kind of money that Jackie did. However, she did somehow manage to “borrow” lots of really expensive gowns and dresses from designers, even though she often “forgot” to give them back.
This was a problem for several reasons:
1. The First Lady is not supposed to accept expensive gifts (which they ostensibly were, if she never returned the clothes on loan).
2. If the clothes were gifts instead of loans, the First Lady SHOULD have been claiming the gifts on her taxes, which she never did.
In the end, Nancy announced in 1982 that she would stop borrowing gowns and dresses from designers, but that didn’t stop the IRS from hitting her with a million-dollar tax bill for all the dresses she had “borrowed” but never returned.
“Haven’t you seen an old lady walk a dog before?”
—FIRST LADY BARBARA BUSH TO GAWKING REPORTERS, AS SHE TOOK HER DOG MILLIE OUT FOR A WALK IN A BATHROBE AND SLIPPERS
Helen Taft Throws a Million-Dollar Party
William Howard Taft’s wife Helen was quite the social climber—even being First Lady was not enough for her.
So when the 25th anniversary of her wedding to the president rolled around, she decided to invite four thousand of her closest friends to the White House to celebrate the occasion.
But here’s where the story starts to get interesting: Helen worded the party invitations in such a way that it was obvious to guests that bringing an expensive gift was a requirement for getting through the door. At the party, guests wandered around the White House grounds asking each other how much they had spent on a gift to get in.
And in the end, the Tafts ended up taking in more than a million dollars worth of silver in gifts that evening.
On the other hand:
* * *
When Eleanor Roosevelt threw a party for the queen … she served hot dogs!
PRESIDENT PARDONS PIRATE???
Well, yeah … but at least he was OUR pirate.
This all dates back to the War of 1812, when the British tried to get to get pirate Jean Laffite to help them take over New Orleans.
But Jean was a very wily pirate, of course, so he accepted an offer from President James Madison to fight on the US side in exchange for a pardon for himself and his men.
Jean Laffite and his men fought nobly for the United States. Then after the war, Laffite and his fellow pirates took their pardons along with their pirate ships, moved down the coast to Galveston, Texas, and went back to terrorizing US citizens and others as they resumed their pirating, looting ways.
This is not a “Monica Lewinsky” joke:
One night, long before Monica was even a
glint in her father’s eye, JFK sent his press
secretary Pierre Salinger out to buy a thousand
or so of his favorite cigars, which happened to
be Upmann Petits from Cuba.
Then the next morning, after Salinger showed
up with twelve hundred cigars, Kennedy
proceededto sign an order banning any future
Cuban imports into the United States.
MY BROTHER, HE’S DAMN HEAVY
The next few pages are inspired by Roger Clinton, the cocaine-snorting, drug-dealing, drunk-driving, white-trash brother of Bill Clinton, and also by Billy Carter, the beer-guzzling, jaw-flapping, Libyan-lobbyist-bribe-taking, redneck brother of Jimmy Carter.
Meanwhile, it would be a shame not to also mention:
Setting the Standard for Future Civil-Service Employees:
• James Monroe’s brother, Joseph, was such a ne’er-do-well, with three ex-wives and a mountain of debt, that the president hired him as secretary just so he could keep an eye on him and prevent him from getting into any more trouble. (James Monroe also hired his wife’s nephew, Samuel Gouverneur, for the same reason.)
• Ulysses S. Grant’s brother Orvil (along with the president’s son, Frederick Dent Grant) were reportedly implicated in the “Whiskey Ring” scandal, where IRS agents collaborated with liquor distillers to fake production reports and therefore avoid paying taxes; of course, a percentage of the money that was saved from paying taxes was skimmed off and paid to the corrupt IRS agents and others like Grant’s son and brother.
• Ulysses S. Grant’s brother-in-law Abel Corbin (who was married to Grant’s sister Virginia) was part of a scheme to buy gold and then trick the president into manipulating the price of gold so it would go up sharply in price.
“I think I helped Jimmy as much as I hurt him … but I certainly didn’t hurt him enough to [cause him to] lose 44 states.”
—BILLY CARTER
• Richard Nixon’s brother, Donald, dreamed of becoming a “Burger King” of sorts by opening his own chain of hamburger joints, but President Nixon was so unnerved by all his brother’s get-rich schemes that he ordered the Secret Service to wiretap his brother’s phone to make sure he wasn’t about to do anything that would be embarrassing during the 1972 Nixon reelection campaign.
• While JFK was president, his brother Teddy confessed to cheating on his law school exams.
How much trouble was Roger Clinton?
* * *
Let’s put it this way … his Secret Service codename was “Headache.”
LBJ Made a Place for His Brother Sam at the White House, of Course …
But not because he was fond of Sam, or because Sam had a special job to do for the president.
Rather, it was President Johnson’s way of keeping an eye on his brother because Sam was, by his own admission, a “problem drinker,” and apparently Sam had another problem: every time he knocked back a few “adult beverages,” he’d start divulging very sensitive and damaging information to the press.
Sam was such a problem for President Johnson that LBJ gave him a home in the White House and had security personnel keep track of him 24/7.
But in his memoirs, Sam Johnson described himself as a prisoner in the White House, unable to step outside without a swarm of Secret Service agents monitoring everything he did.
Prez Makes Pitch for Half-Bro’s Biz
Imagine owning your own business.
And imagine having a half-brother who was the president of the United States.
And now imagine that your half-brother makes personal appearances at your business to help you attract more customers.
That’d be pretty nice, right?
Well, that’s exactly what President William Howard Taft did for his half-brother, Charles Phelps Taft, when he showed up at the Opening Day game for the Washington Senators baseball team on April 14, 1910.
As it turns out, the Senators were playing the Philadelphia Athletics that day, and President Taft’s half-brother was part owner of the Philly team.
The chance to see the president toss out the first pitch drew quite a few extra fans to the game. (Which was a bit surprising, since Taft was a very unpopular president; in fact, he was actually booed and hissed by some as he took to the field.)
NEIL BUSH: PROBLEM BROTHER, PROBLEM SON
Somehow, whenever we think of presidential brother/presidential son Neil Bush, this scene from the movie Chinatown always pops into our heads:
Evelyn Mulwray: She’s my daughter. [Gittes slaps Evelyn]
Jake Gittes: I said I want the truth!
Evelyn Mulwray: She’s my sister …
[slap]
Evelyn Mulwray: She’s my daughter …
[slap]
Evelyn Mulwray: My sister, my daughter.
[More slaps]
Jake Gittes: I said I want the truth!
Evelyn Mulwray: She’s my sister AND my daughter!
Neil, of course, is the Bush brother/son who:
• Was involved in the collapse of the Silverado Savings and Loan and the S&L crisis.
• Was cochairman of a company called Crest Investment, which paid him $60,000 per year for “answering phone calls when Jamal Daniel, the other cochairman, called and asked for advice.”
• Was paid $2 million in company stock and $10,000 for every board meeting he attended for a Chinese semiconductor company. But, of course, we’d be negligent if we didn’t point out that Neil Bush didn’t know anything about semiconductors when he took the job.
• Used his family name and connections to meet with Arab princes, have a private dinner with the president of China, and negotiate a deal which paid him $642,500 to introduce an Asian investor to a US high-tech company.
Finally, as you read on, you will see there was a “very unusual” thing that just kept happening every time Neil visited the Far East.
When Opportunity Knocks for Neil Bush, He Always Opens the Door!
While getting divorced from his wife Sharon, Neil disclosed in a deposition with Sharon’s attorney that during repeated out-of-the-country business trips in the late 1990s, he had sex with strange women who just happened to show up at his door at various hotels in Hong King and Thailand.
Neil, of course, claimed that he didn’t know a thing about these women—whether or not they were prostitutes, what made them decide to knock at his door, who sent them to his door—because he didn’t ask.
He just welcomed them in and had sex with them,
And that was that.
“Mr. Bush, you have to admit it’s a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her … ”
—MARSHALL DAVIS BROWN, DIVORCE ATTORNEY REPRESENTING SHARON BUSH DURING A DEPOSITION OF NEIL BUSH
“It was VERY unusual … ”
—NEIL BUSH’S RESPONSE
PLEASE DO AS I SAY … NOT AS I TAUGHT MY CHILDREN TO DO
Robert Johnson, son of President Andrew Johnson, illustrates an important lesson in life for us all:
If you’re the son of the president, it’s a bad idea to pick up a prostitute and take her back to your place. Especially when you actually live at the White House in addition to working there for your dad!
We like to call it “The (Margarita) Shot Heard ’Round the World!”:
Underage twins Jenna and Barbara Bush. A night of drinking. A couple of fake IDs. Need we say more?
“Have you been drinking, Son?”
In the case of John Tyler’s son, John, the answer was obviously “Yes.” And the drinking got to be such a problem that Tyler eventually had to fire John, who also happened to be his press secretary!
Alice Roosevelt, Holy Terror:
Much can be said about Teddy Roosevelt’s oldest child, Alice:
• When her parents told her she could not smoke under their roof, she took her cigarettes up to the White House roof.
• When other women found it fashionable to wear feather boas, Alice decided to wear a REAL boa to an event.
• After she took a real dislike to William Howard Taft’s wife, Alice buried a voodoo doll in the front yard of the White House as a way to put a curse onto Taft and his wife.
Chester Alan Arthur’s skinny-dipping son Alan:
He got caught swimming nude in the White House’s South Lawn fountain in the middle of the night … along with the Prince of Siam.
THE PROBLEM WITH THE “WARREN” COMMISSION:
Aren’t you glad you do a better job of choosing your friends than Warren Harding did?
• Charles Forbes was Harding’s head of the Veteran’s Bureau … and he was also caught defrauding the government of $200 million by taking kickbacks when buying goods, skimming profits when selling goods, and even selling bootlegged drugs to drug dealers.
• Forbes’s assistant was Charles Cramer … and he shot himself to death. Why? No one knows. Even though he left a suicide note behind addressed to Harding, Harding never read it.
• Harry Daugherty was Harding’s attorney general … and he was also caught selling alcohol during Prohibition.
• Daugherty’s assistant was Jess Smith … and he killed himself, too.
• Albert Fall was Harding’s secretary of the interior … and he got caught taking more than $400,000 in kickbacks and loans while leasing to oil companies the oil rights in Wyoming’s Teapot Dome and California’s Elk Hills reserves. Fall eventually spent a year in jail and was fined $100,000 for being the mastermind behind the “Teapot Dome” scandal.
“If you were a girl, Warren, you’d be in the family way all the time. You can’t say no.”
—WARREN HARDING’S FATHER, GEORGE
THE PRESIDENTIAL “FRIEND” FACTOR
At first, you might think that being a friend of the president would be a really great thing that included lots of perks, like:
• Personal White House tours!
• Invitations to fancy-shmancy dinners!!
• Wonderful opportunities to get really cushy government jobs!!!
• Or to become really high-paid lobbyists or high-paid corporate board members!!!
And to be fair, we think the first two items above are every president’s right to share with friends. In fact, if one of us is ever elected president, we’ll do the same.
But that third item, let’s face it: it’s a loaded public-relations gun for every president. Just ask Harriet Miers.
She was President George W. Bush’s White House counsel and his former personal attorney. And even though she had absolutely no judicial experience and no experience with constitutional law, he thought he’d nominate her to the Supreme Court anyway.
Now, to be fair to President Bush, some Americans and members of Congress agreed with him when he said that he thought her lack of experience as a judge would bring a “fresh perspective” to the bench. But clearly, not enough Americans or members of Congress (or members of the press!) went along, and Miers withdrew her nomination as a nominee for the Supreme Court a few weeks later.
Of course, this isn’t the first time a president has offered a friend (or friends) a peach of a government job only to see those job offerings blow up in his face.
Bush’s selection of friend raises questions of cronyism …
—USA TODAY, OCTOBER 3, 2005
“I am concerned that the confirmation process presents a burden for the White House and our staff that is not in the best interest of the country.”
—HARRIET MIERS, IN A LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH ON OCTOBER 27, 2005
MY FRIEND, MY PRESIDENT, MY MEAL-TICKET
Look, here’s the problem: if you’re the president, you’ve got to surround yourself with your “people.” You know: cabinet members, aides, advisors, staffers. And when it comes to filling these jobs, who are you going to think of first? People you know, of course. People you know and trust.
Is that cronyism? Or nepotism?
No, it’s not—if those people are truly qualified for the job you’re offering. And yes, it is—if they’re not.
So the hard part, when you’re president, is asking yourself:
“How do I figure out who is qualified? And how do I let down gently those friends and family who think they’re qualified for lofty government positions, but they’re really not?”
You’d think this would be pretty easy stuff for someone smart enough to be elected Leader of the Free World, but as you will see, history sometimes shows that this is one of the hardest parts of the job.
My God, this is a hell of a job! I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends, my g-damn friends … they’re the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!
— PRESIDENT WARREN HARDING, AFTER HE REALIZED THE DOWNSIDE OF HAVING EXTENDED THE RIGHTS OF EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE(S)™ TO HIS NO-GOOD FRIENDS
Cronyism = Scandalism???
As you may recall, in our earlier “Money!” chapter, we pointed out that the three presidents with the most corrupt administrations were Buchanan, Grant, and Truman.
Why?
Well, in Buchanan’s case, his administration was corrupt because he himself was corrupt.
But in the case of Grant and Truman, both were very honest guys; it was their amazing loyalty to old friends that brought corruption (and tons of it!) into their administrations.
“When I came into power, I found that the party managers had taken it all to themselves. I could not name my own Cabinet. They had sold out every place to pay the election expenses.”
—PRESIDENT BENJAMIN HARRISON
“A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight train; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.”
—-PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Ulysses S. Grant and the “Friend Factor”
• Grant’s vice president, Schuyler Colfax, resigned after it was discovered that he had taken bribes earlier in his political career.
• Grant’s secretary of war, William Belknap, resigned after it was found that both his first and second wives (and they were sisters!) had taken bribes, and that he, too, had personally received kickbacks from time to time.
• Grant’s secretary of the navy, George Robeson, resigned after it was discovered that he had received three hundred thousand dollars in kickbacks for handing out defense contracts to friends.
• Grant’s ambassador to Brazil, James Watson Webb, got caught taking a one-hundred-thousand-dollar bribe from the Brazilian government.
• Grant’s assistant treasurer, General Daniel Butterfield, admitted to being a part of the “black Friday” gold panic and also admitted to committing perjury.
• Grant appointed his friend General John D. McDonald as head of the IRS, and McDonald was later implicated in the “Whiskey Ring” scandal that involved IRS agents falsifying reports and keeping some liquor taxes for themselves.
• Grant’s personal secretary, Orville E. Babcock, and other friends were also implicated in the “Whiskey Ring” scandal.
Harry Truman and the “Friend Factor”
• Truman made an old buddy from the Missouri National Guard, his former tea-salesman friend Harry Vaughn, coordinator of Veteran Affairs. Vaughn is most famous for hinting to a lobbyist that he and the President both needed new freezers at their homes, so the manufacturer sent free freezers to Harry Truman’s house back in Missouri, to Harry Vaughn, and to four other well-placed Truman friends in the administration, and a huge scandal about the gifts erupted.
• Truman’s presidential appointments secretary, Matthew Connelly, was found guilty of accepting all kinds of gifts—cash, one of Harry Vaughn’s freezers, suits and other clothing, and even oil royalties. In the end, he did time for bribery, perjury, and conspiracy.
• Truman’s personal physician, Dr. Wallace Graham, was investigated by a Senate subcommittee for fraud and corruption, and he admitted to engaging in insider trading.
• A variety of Truman friends (and friends of Truman friends) were implicated in shady dealings with the “Reconstruction Finance Corporation,” which was created during the Hoover presidency to give financial assistance to bankrupt companies during the Depression. Among the Truman friends who were accused of wrongdoings:
• Personnel executive Donald Dawson was investigated by Congress and found guilty of a variety of financial improprieties.
• RFC examiner E. Merl Young made a loan to one company, then went to work for the same company the day after the loan was approved; he also got on the payroll of other companies after he got their RFC loans approved. Young also took as a bribe a mink coat for his wife, which later led to Richard Nixon’s reference to his wife’s “respectable, Republican cloth coat” during his infamous televised “Checkers” speech while running for vice president under Eisenhower.
• While on the White House payroll, attorney William Boyle took kickbacks for helping companies get RFC loans.
And sometimes, friends of presidents
give up a lot, too:
“My holdings [in General Motors] may sound
like a lot, [but] as a percentage of General
Motors they are less than one-tenth of one
percent.”
—General Motors CEO “Engine” Charlie
Wilson*, after he was told he would have to
give up his $600,000/year salary and sell his
$2.5 million in GM stock before he could
become Eisenhower’s secretary of defense
* He was called “Engine” Charlie so he wouldn’t be confused with “Electric” Charlie, the “other” Charles Wilson, who was head of General Electric and the Office of Defense Mobilization for Harry Truman.