Other presidents who came close to facing criminal charges

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By Olivia B. Waxman

Staff Writer

Since at least Mar. 18, politicos have been waiting to see if former President Donald Trump would be indicted by the Manhattan DA this week, over an alleged hush money payment to former porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, says they had an affair and Trump paid her through his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen to stay quiet about it. Trump denies the affair and any wrongdoing in the payments.

To figure out where a Trump indictment would fit in the history of presidential political scandals, I called up presidential historian Barbara Perry at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, who says the closest parallels would be the Teapot Dome scandal in the Harding era, Watergate in the Nixon era, and Paula Jones’ sexual harassment suit in the Clinton era. But Trump would be the first President to ever be criminally charged. As Perry put it, “Like all things with Trump, it’s unprecedented.” Click here to read the full story.

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FROM THE TIME VAULT

This week in 1965: Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Despite great gains in the past decade, the American Negro is still often denied the most basic right of citizenship under constitutional government —the right to vote. Last week the Negro's struggle to achieve that right exploded into an orgy of police brutality, of clubs and whips and tear gas, of murder, of protests and parades and sit-ins in scores of U.S. cities and in the White House itself. It was a week in which the potential for further violence was so great that President Johnson signed an order that would have dispatched federal troops to Alabama on a moment's notice. It was a week of intense pressures and back-room dealings, of quick emotionalism and easily achieved righteousness. And it was a very trying week for the foremost leader of the civil rights movement, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr." (March 19, 1965)

This week in 1979: Jimmy Carter

“Jimmy Carter's bold flight to the Middle East last week was one of the most startling and swiftly executed diplomatic initiatives in years. Just 72 hours after he telephoned Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to invite himself to Cairo, Carter was on the banks of the Nile. It was a daring attempt to use the prestige of the U.S. presidency to end the months-long stalemate blocking an Egyptian-Israeli peace settlement. Even though the search for a Middle East accord has claimed more of the President's time than any other issue, last week's journey, in the words of Presidential Assistant Hamilton Jordan, demonstrated Carter's willingness to go ‘the final, extra mile.’ The goal, of course, was momentous: an end to more than 30 years of warfare that repeatedly threatened to draw the American and Soviet super powers into a clash.”(March 19, 1979)

This week in 1987: Supernova

“On the night of Feb. 23, 1987, [the] first light emitted by the exploding star, having traveled a billion billion miles through space, finally reached the earth. Some of the light passed through the lens of a 10-in. telescope at Las Campanas Observatory on a windblown 8,000- ft. mountaintop in northern Chile and was reflected into a camera set up by Ian Shelton, a Canadian astronomer…While hundreds of supernovas occurring in incredibly distant galaxies have been spotted by powerful telescopes, this was the first one visible to the naked eye since 1885. More important, at a distance of only 170,000 light-years, it was the brightest one to appear in terrestrial skies since 1604. News of Shelton's discovery, promptly named 1987A (for the first supernova of the year), was telegraphed to observatories around the world by the International Astronomical Union.” (March 23, 1987)