Trump faces arraignment. Here’s what happened when other U.S. politicians were indicted

Donald Trump is the first US president to be impeached, and his plea could be the start of a long process before he goes to trial on charges he faces involving payments to adult film actresses.

Richard Nixon was pardoned shortly after his successor Gerald Ford resigned in 1974 over the Watergate scandal, and Bill Clinton made a deal to avoid potential perjury charges as a result of sprawling investigations that occurred during his presidency.

Trump, a presidential candidate again, faces potential legal exposure in several other investigations.

Several executive branch officials before Trump have faced indictment, and even more cases have involved legislative branch figures.

Examples below include federal politicians cited for alleged or confirmed misconduct in office or campaign. Spoiler alert: Most don’t see the inside of institutional facilities.

Vice president

Spiro Agnew, who was not liked by the media before Trump, pleaded no contest in 1973 to one count of tax evasion of about $13,000 US – $122,000 today. Vice president Richard Nixon made the request after learning he was facing indictment in an investigation into allegations he accepted kickbacks from developers while holding various Maryland political offices in the 1960s.

He was sentenced to three years of unsupervised probation and fined $10,000. Agnew denied wrongdoing but resigned to “restore unbroken trust and implicit trust” to the vice president’s office.

Attorney general

John Mitchell was the most high-profile of several Nixon White House figures to go to prison for his actions in helping to cover up the break-in of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex. He was jailed for 19 months on charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury.

Mitchell’s wife, Martha, became a source for reporters during the Watergate affair, with Sean Penn and Julia Roberts portraying the couple in the 2022 miniseries. Gaslit. The couple was in the process of divorcing when Martha Mitchell died in 1976.

When sentenced to prison in 1975, the former attorney general said: “It could have been a hell of a lot worse. They could have sentenced me to life with Martha Mitchell.”

Secretary of defense

Ronald Reagan’s defense secretary Caspar Weinberger was indicted in 1992 by an independent counsel investigating the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, and charged with obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements.

Weinberger reportedly offered an agreement to plead guilty in exchange for testifying against Reagan and other White House officials. He rejected the overture, accepting a pardon for Natal and five others charged in the arms-for-hostage scandal, granted by president George HW Bush, who had been Reagan’s vice president.

Weinberger is weeks away from trial and faces up to five years in prison if convicted.

“I’m concerned about any action that sends a signal that if you work for the government, you’re above the law,” Clinton, the president-elect, said at the time.

Home secretary

Henry Cisneros, the married Mayor of San Antonio, began an affair with a married woman in the 1980s that would have implications for both of them years later, when he was secretary of housing and urban development.

Cisneros continued to provide some financial support to the woman after the affair ended, but undervalued that amount by six figures in the FBI background check for the position of home secretary. In 1997, he was indicted on charges including conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

He will plead guilty to lying to the FBI, a final case with a $10,000 fine but no jail time or probation. Prosecutors wanted testimony from his mistress, but her credibility was in doubt after she committed bank fraud on a loan on a house bought with some of Cisneros’ donations.

Cisneros was later pardoned by Clinton.

The senators

When Robert Menendez was indicted in 2015, the Washington Post reported that he became the 12th senator ever to be impeached. The New Jersey Democrat is still in office, as a jury deadlocked in 2017 on charges he faced on charges he helped wealthy friends and received luxury trips and campaign donations. This case is not being tried again.

Other cases involving senators resulted in acquittals, reversals of appeals and plea deals that did not involve prison, while one senator in the early 1900s died before his appeal was heard.

Only two senators sat in prison: Kansas Republican Joseph Burton served five months after the 1904 mail fraud case, while New Jersey Democrat Harrison Williams served 21 months in the 1980s in the Abscam bribery affair, which also entnared several Congressmen. member and inspiration of the 2013 film American Hustle.

Democrat Ted Kennedy was not indicted by a grand jury in a fatal car accident in 1969 that was not reported until the next day. The reasons why have been hotly debated.

The representatives

The House of Representatives is a body of 435 members and more than 11,000 people have served in the chamber. Since 1980, about two dozen have spent time at the bar. California Republican Duke Cunningham and Trump-like Ohio Democrat James Traficant were each jailed for seven years in corruption cases this century, among the longest sentences for US politicians.

A potential prison sentence didn’t stop Tom DeLay from dancing on Dancing With the Stars:

In the most famous recent case, House Republican leader Tom DeLay was indicted in 2005 on charges of money laundering and conspiracy. DeLay the competition Dancing with the Stars while awaiting trial, and was convicted but never jailed, because an appeals court overturned the verdict due to “insufficient legal” evidence.

In late 2020, Trump pardoned Chris Collins and Duncan Hunter and commuted Steve Stockman’s sentence. Collins and Stockman are in the middle of serving multi-year prison sentences for insider trading and money laundering, respectively, while Hunter is set to begin a month-long sentence for misusing campaign funds.

The presidential candidates

Trump would not be the first presidential candidate to be impeached. Republican Rick Perry faced two charges from the Texas supreme court in 2014 for abuse of power while governor of the state, in a complicated case in which he appeared to pressure legislators to resign.

In early 2016, Perry’s presidential campaign was over and an appeals court threw out the indictment, accusing the verdict of violating the state constitution.

In a case comparable to Trump, Democrat John Edwards began his presidential campaign in 2008 while engaging in an extramarital affair. Three years later, prosecutors handed down an indictment that carried significant prison time, accusing Edwards of using money from wealthy donors to support his pregnant lover.

Edwards was eventually acquitted in court on one count, a jury deadlocked on another count, and prosecutors chose not to retry.

The Trump case has also resurfaced the Eugene Debs saga. Leaders of the Socialist Party of America were convicted of sedition after promoting resistance to the military draft in 1918.

However, he ran for president in 1920 while in prison, getting 3.4 percent of the vote. A month later, his sentence was commuted.