ELM’s Top Ten Political Sex Scandals Of The US

10) Playboy James McGreevey

The married ex-governor and father of two resigned after admitting to an affair with another man – his Homeland Security advisor. According to McGreevey, the affair began 12 days after he was elected governor of New Jersey. McGreevey was forced to come out the closet in August of 2004 amongst threats by his former security advisor to file a sexual harassment suit against him.

9) Playboy Randy “Duke” Cunningham

The Duke perhaps earned himself the heaviest of repercussions amid our list of political sex scandal champions. Federal agents claim that Cunningham, former Republican congressman from San Diego, hired prostitutes and stayed in a luxury suite with them in a hotel in Hawaii in 2003. The services of the women were allegedly paid for by defense contractor Brent Wilkes and were considered bribes.

Cunningham acknowledged a conspiracy to commit bribery, mail and wire fraud and tax evasion under a plea agreement, and he was sentenced to twelve years in prison.

Perverted Playboy Mark Foley

Mark Foley, an ex-Republican congressman from Florida, brings a new level of slime into our list of top ten political sex scandals. Foley introduced legislation targeting online sexual predators and advocating stiffer penalties for them as the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children.

In 2004, Foley sent e-mails to a 16-year-old page where he requested a photo of the page. ABC News reported that Foley e-mailed a teenage page asking him to stay at the Foley’s home in exchange for oral sex. Shortly after, other Capitol Hill pages contacted ABC and the Washington Post providing transcripts of sexually explicit instant messaging conversations that Foley had with two pages under the age of 18 at the time. One of his famed alleged conversations included Foley inquiring about the underage page’s masturbation techniques.

This scandal led to Foley’s resignation from Congress in September 2006.

7) Playboy Eliot Spitzer

As New York’s Democratic attorney general, Eliot L. Spitzer advocated the elimination of prostitution having prosecuted several prostitution rings in his career. Spitzer went on to become elected as the state’s governor in 2006 and eventually had to resign in 2008 after federal investigators found out he used an escort service called Emperors Club VIP to arrange for a prostitute to meet him at Washington’s Mayflower Hotel. Spitzer had at least seven or eight liaisons with prostitutes from the agency over a six month period, and paid more than $15,000 for their services. Investigators believe Spitzer paid up to $80,000 for prostitutes over a period of several years while he was attorney general, and later as governor.

Spitzer apologized to his family and the public after the New York Times broke this story. He became a target of investigation by New York’s Ethics Commission, but government prosecutors decided not to charge Spitzer in connection with his involvement with the escort service. Spitzer and his wife have since entered into couples counseling.

6) Playboy Strom Thurmond

Strom Thurmond, who served in the Senate from 1963-2003, was one of the most outspoken advocates for segregation in the United States and was legendary for his racist views. He unsuccessfully ran for president in 1948 for the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party, otherwise known as a “Dixiecrat,” and also conducted the longest filibuster ever by a U.S. Senator in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Thurmond shocked the world when it was revealed shortly after his death that he fathered a child with an African-American maid who was only 15-years-old at the time of the liaison. Whether or not the sex was mutually consensual still remains in question.

5) Playboy Warren G. Harding

Warren G. Harding served as president from 1921-1923 and is notoriously one of the most disfavored presidents in United States history. Harding’s presidential career was marred with bad choices, political chaos and scandals.

He had long-term affairs with two women in particular. One involved a fifteen-year relationship with his friend’s wife, Carrie Fulton Phillips, who threatened to spill the juicy details after Harding was nominated for president by the Republican Party. It is said that the Republican National Committee bribed for her silence with $50,000 and shipped her and her family off to Japan where she received monthly payments from them to keep her story in the vault. In 1968, poetry letters from Harding to Phillips were brought forward to conclude this mystery.

The other long-lasting love affair was with a woman named Nan Britton, who was thirty years younger than Harding. Britton wrote a book spilling all the juicy details about their relationship in 1927 where she described trysts in the White House closets, bathrooms and any other inconspicuous space. Britton claimed her daughter, Elizabeth Ann, is Harding’s illegitimate child. Harding never saw the child but did provide Britton with child support payments.

Harding died in 1923 shortening his presidential term, and many speculated that his wife poisoned him due to his infidelity.

4) Playboy Grover Cleveland

During his time as the mayor of Buffalo, Cleveland allegedly conceived an illegitimate child with Maria Halpin, who had been accused of being a prostitute that serviced many young lawyers in Buffalo. According to the Washington Post, Cleveland never knew for sure whether or not the child was his, but he supported Halpin and her son financially and admitted to the possibility publicly.

During his campaign for presidency in 1884, this issue was raised by opposing Republicans, supporting Sen. James G. Blaine, who showed up at rallies with baby carriages with dolls inside chanting “Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?” Despite this scandal, Cleveland won the election and his enthusiastic party replied to this slogan with, “Gone to the White House, ha ha ha.”

3) Playboy Thomas Jefferson

This legendary founding father of the United States and president from 1801-1809, allegedly fathered more than a nation. It is rumored that Jefferson had an affair with Sallly Hemings, one of his very own African-American slaves. Hemings, who was supposedly only a teenager at the time of this childbearing relationship, met Jefferson in Paris and returned with him to his plantation at Monticello. It is said that Jefferson had six children with Hemings, who was a very light skinned black slave, and the story of this forbidden affair penetrated newspaper headlines in 1802.

Jefferson also allegedly had affairs with two different married women while serving as a diplomat in Paris. Journalists published accounts of Jefferson’s lack of restraint around attractive women labeling him a “libertine” when he became President.

2) Playboy John F. Kennedy

Kennedy, President from 1961 to 1963, is notorious for being the ladies man of the 60s. His alleged sexual encounters include affairs with White House workers, gangsters’ girlfriends, staff members, reporters and movie stars. It’s been said that he often participated in threesomes and used the Secret Service to cover his tracks.

Kennedy was rumored to have had illicit rendezvous with Angie Dickinson, Kim Novak, and most famously, Marilyn Monroe. In February 2008, newspaper reports came forward about an illegitimate son of Kennedy living in Canada born from a Texas woman he allegedly had an affair with in 1961, a month after his inauguration.

1) Playboy Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton’s scandal stories reveal a lifetime of alleged sexual affairs. Let’s just call him the mac daddy of scandalous politicians.

In 1994, two Arkansas state troopers, who said they assisted in the arrangements of Clinton’s extramarital affairs, claimed they saw him with dozens of different women during the time he served as Governor of Arkansas. Professions of alleged affairs with Bill Clinton have come from Gennifer Flowers, an actress who posed for Penthouse Magazine, Elizabeth Ward Gracen, an actress who posed for Playboy Magazine, Sally Perdue, a former Miss Arkansas, and Dolly Kyle Browning, a Dallas lawyer and supposed old friend of Clinton’s.  Paula Jones, an Arkansas state clerk, claimed Clinton dropped his pants, alluded to his genitals and asked her to “kiss it.” Jones filed a sexual harassment case against Clinton in 1994, but the case was eventually thrown out in 1998.

Clinton moved up in the world to become the 42nd President from 1993-2001, a time when media really mastered the idea of available information and naked secrets. Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, a 21-year-old White House intern, was revealed with tapes of phone conversations brought forward by Linda Trip exposing every dirty, little secret including Lewinsky performing oral sex in the oval office, Clinton’s sperm stain on her blue dress and his creative use of a cigar case as an impromptu dildo. This particular sexual escapade led to the impeachment of Clinton attributed to his denial of this activity while under oath.