“Of the 89 potential fears [the survey of American Fears] asked about, the one that the highest share of Americans said they were either “afraid” or “very afraid” of was federal government corruption,”(Rampell 1). Many Americans fear political corruption and can occur in many ways, but the main source is bribery. Moreover, bribery affects all Americans and this is proven in historical events such as the Watergate scandal and the Teapot Dome scandal. Each event has consequences of its own; therefore corruption must be solved.
Bribery is the main cause of corruption, because bribes allow people in power to circumvent the legal process. Wealthy people who want something done can easily pay the politician to make sure the law they want passes. This has been done in the past such as with the infamous story of the Watergate scandal with President Nixon. In history, bribery has always occurred in the government as a way of getting something done, an example of this includes the Supreme Court cases on bribery where acts that were created to lower corruption have been broken. In 1979,
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After Nixon’s people were caught and pled guilty, the Supreme Court needed evidence to find the President guilty, which was done with tapes that were subpoenaed by the court from the President. According to the Ohio School of Law, “Discovery of the foreign corporate payments problem in the mid-1970s resulted from a combination of work by the Office of the Watergate Special Prosecutor,” (Koehler 1). Because of the corruption that was found in the Watergate scandal, there were laws passed to stop this type of corruption from happening. The Watergate scandal is one of the events from the past that has proven that bribery in the government, there has been corruption. When there is corruption in the United States, there are laws enacted to stop the corruption from happening again, even if these laws do not always
By the mid 20th century, the scale and prominence of corruption had increased dramatically, due to the widespread transition to vast urban cities and industrialized systems. The greed and desperation that resulted from the shift towards industrialism accelerated the growth of corruption in politics. Although the shift to industry was a necessary stepping stone in the development of the modern society existing today, it was accompanied by various consequences to American society and facilitated the corruption of government officials. The exploitation of fellow
When Nixon was inaugurated, he took a sworn oath to protect the people and the country. He lied to his people. He states, “The major problem on the Watergate is simply to clean the thing up by having whoever was responsible admit what happened. Certainly I am satisfied that nobody in the White House had any knowledge or approved any such activity.” (Memoirs 646).
Famously known as Watergate, President Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign brought in $20 million in secret donations. Nixon told his chief of staff to inform donors, “Anybody who wants to be an ambassador must at least give $250,000”. As a result, the Federal Election Commission was set up, and Congress imposed new limits on campaign gifts as a result.
‘Confidence in the government declined between 1968 and 1980 largely due to political scandal’. To what extent do you agree?
Probable Causes of Corruption – Different things motivate different people. Some can motivate people to perform beyond expectations and some can lead astray from moral and ethical values.
Corruption is an individual and institutional process where there is a gain by a public official from a briber and in return receives a service. Between the gain and the service, there is an improper connection, (Thompson p.28). The two major categories of bribery is individual and institutional corruption. Receiving personal goods for the pursuit of one’s own benefit is personal fraud. An example of individual distortion is the financial scandal involving David Durenberger. Organizational corruption involves “receiving goods that are useable primarily in the political process and are necessary for doing a job or are essential by-products of doing it,” (Thompson p.30). An instance of institutional fraud is the Keating Five case. There are also times where there is a mixture of both individual and organizational corruption in a scandal. An example of this diverse combination is James C. Wright Jr. actions while he was the Speaker of the House.
“From Watergate we learned what generations before us have known; our Constitution works. And during Watergate years it was interpreted again so as to reaffirm that no one - absolutely no one - is above the law.” -Leon Jaworski, special prosecutor during the Watergate scandal.
Richard Nixon's first term as president will always be connected with the Watergate scandal, the biggest political scandal in United States history. Various illegal activities were conducted including burglary, wire tapping, violations of campaign financing laws, sabotage, and attempted use of government agencies to harm political opponents to help Richard Nixon win reelection in the 1972 presidential elections. There were about 40 people charged with crimes related to the scandal. Most of them were convicted by juries or pleaded guilty. Watergate involved more high-level government officials than any previous scandal. It has been etched in the minds of millions and is still being recalled today when faced with the present day scandal of President Clinton. In All The President's Men, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, former Washington Post reporters, recount, illustrate, and analyze the Watergate scandal time and their work in reporting and revealing these events for the newspaper.
Despite the national attention the Watergate scandal had gained President Nixon, he won the second term presidency. The major problem for Nixon would come later. The investigations of the Watergate scandal lead to the discovery of other criminal acts by officials including Nixon. During the investigation many things begin to surface. It was discovered that documents had been destroyed that may have made a link between Nixon and the Watergate scandal. These documents may have shown that he had some acknowledgement in what had happened. There was evidence that people involved in the Nixon campaign had been wire tapping phones illegally for a long time according to “dummies.com”. The greatest issue would come to light during the 1973 Watergate hearings. During testimonies it came to light that every conversation was recorded in the Oval office according to “study.com”. It was demanded that these tapes be reviewed to learn how much involvement President Nixon had in the Watergate burglary. The President felt that he had the right to withhold these tapes through what he referred to as executive privilege. This means that if it is the best interest of the public the president has the right to keep information from the
Political leaders of the United States were, at one time, thought of as crucial members of our society. Ideally, their main goal was to represent and satisfy the needs of the American people. Unfortunately, over the last fifty years, our trust in our administrative representatives has drastically declined. Beginning with the great conspiracy theory that President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 was actually planned by political leaders, America had, for the first time in history, begun to question its faith in its very own government. Consequently, the American people became extremely hesitant when it came to electing officials into office. Despite his loss to JFK in the 1960 presidential election, in 1968, Richard M. Nixon was elected as the thirty-seventh president of the United States. He was praised by many for his comeback after previously losing an election and seemed to be an admirable man. While in office, Nixon made many achievements and followed through with all of his promises made during his campaign. For the first time in what seemed like forever, the American people had finally elected a leader who seemed unquestionably trustworthy – or so they thought. Unfortunately, shortly after Nixon was elected to his second term of presidency in 1972, the Watergate Scandal changed America forever by creating a sense of mistrust toward the government for the American people because of The Nixon Administration’s actions.
The Watergate Scandal also known as the Watergate Affair was the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon. Members of Nixon’s administration broke into DNC headquarters in the Watergate building to steal top secret documents and bug the office phones. The Watergate Scandal that occurred from 1972-1974 led to members of the Nixon administration fired and the resignation of President Richard Nixon. After Nixon resigned from his presidency, Gerald Ford took office in 1974. When he became president he issued a pardon on Nixon. Some people think Nixon should not have been pardon, and some people believe that it was right for Ford to pardon Nixon. Richard Nixon shouldn’t have been pardoned because he is deceptive,showed no integrity, his actions were despicable and he committed or ordered a felony.
The Watergate scandal was a huge political scandal that altered many American citizens views of their country’s political system. This continues to be a controversial topic to this day due to the secrecy of so much of the information.
The current president of the United States was elected on a promise of fixing the country and making government work better as a whole. Rather than feeling better in the security of the country, however, a clear majority of people in America now say that things have become worse. A recent study done by Transparency International shows that “...government institutions and officials in Washington are perceived to be the most corrupt in the country. The results show that 44 percent of Americans now say that most or all of those in the Office of the President are corrupt, up from 36 percent who said the same last year” (“Corruption” 1). According to this statistic, more people than ever before believe that the presidential position is the most corrupt within the government.
In conclusion, in failing to pass both Kantian and consequentialist formulations, bribery is morally wrong. Pragmatically, long term solutions sanctioning bribery are likely to result in public officials changing their decision making in the absence of bribery, and economic models and research on the whole predicts that the results will be costly in terms of economic efficiency, political legitimacy, and equality.
Montesh, M. (n.d.). Conceptualizing Corruption: Forms, Causes, Types and Consequences. Retrieved May 4, 2014, from