America Forgives Sometimes Bad Behavior And May Still Back Trump
If trump survives yet another scandal he would be merely the latest politicians who sinned but lived to sin and serve another day.
Trump is on trial for covering up hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels but the public tends to go easy on the most lascivious offenders. Trump has thrived despite all kinds of sordid, past allegations of sexual crimes, two impeachments and pending charges ranging from trying to foment the Jan. 6, 2021, assault by his backers on the Capitol to stealing and hiding top secret documents.
For whatever reasons, whether out of ignorance, blind allegiance or Fox brainwashing, if anything, trump’s popularity has grown while he paints a picture of a martyr attacked by a pernicious and relentless left-wing conspiracy.
An AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll published Tuesday found that only a third of U.S. adults think trump broke the law in the hush money case, while half of Americans think Trump violated the law in the other three pending criminal cases. That means two-thirds of American adults think trump did nothing wrong and a full half don’t believe trump violated the law in three other pending criminal cases.
Republican lawmakers and trump acolytes have said the political needle won’t move even if trump is found guilty. If the past is any predictor, they may be right.
Possibly the slimiest, most hypocritical and most notorious Republican to survive in office is Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., an avowed anti-abortion lawmaker who encouraged his former wife to have two abortions. DesJarlais, 60, endorsed trump in 2016 and for 2024 and has viciously criticized President Joe Biden.
A physician, DesJarlais was elected in 2010 as part of the Tea Party wave that swept the House and won again in 2012, running on a pro-life platform. He has been reelected six times and is currently serving his seventh term in Congress. DesJarlais is a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, as well as the GOP Doctors Caucus and Border Security Caucus. He and his second wife, Amy, have three children and the family attends the Epiphany Episcopal Church in Sherwood, Tenn.
DesJarlais has voted for one of the nation’s most draconian anti-abortion laws, where abortion is illegal from fertilization, except to “prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.” Under Tennessee law, anyone who performs an abortion can be charged with a felony.
According to testimony during his 1998 divorce, DesJarlais supported his ex-wife’s decision to get two abortions before their marriage, and he had sexual relationships with at least two patients, three coworkers and a drug representative while he was chief of staff at Grandview Medical Center in Jasper, Tenn.
During one affair with a female patient, DesJarlais prescribed her drugs, gave her an $875 watch and bought her a plane ticket to Las Vegas, records show. DesJarlais admitted to urging one pregnant mistress to get an abortion.
In divorce documents, DesJarlais’s first wife accused him of “dry firing a gun outside [her] locked bedroom door, admission of suicidal ideation, holding a gun in his mouth for three hours, an incident of physical intimidation at the hospital; and previous threatening behavior … i.e. shoving, tripping, pushing down, etc.”
While campaigning for re-election in the 4th Congressional District, DesJarlais did not dispute the allegations but instead blamed “personal smear campaigns that hurt families” that “have no place in politics.”
During his 2012 successful run for re-election, DesJarlais appealed to voters, saying that God has “forgiven me” and asked “fellow Christians” and constituents “to consider doing the same” over a tawdry past.
The congressman’s web site noted at the time the scandals exploded that “he believes that all life should be cherished and protected. He has received a 100 percent score by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the oldest and the largest national pro-life organization in the United States.”
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, filed an ethics complaint against DesJarlais after the abortion story emerged. DesJarlais did not lose his medical license but Tennessee’s top medical disciplinary panel fined him $500 for ethical violations by having sexual relationships he had with two female patients.
DesJarlais was the first member of the House Freedom Caucus to endorse trump for president in 2016 and again for 2024.
“While there are certainly things that I admire and respect in each of the remaining candidates, I believe Donald Trump is the candidate best poised to make America great again. As such, I was proud to cast my vote for Mr. Trump and look forward to supporting the eventual Republican nominee whomever that might be,” DesJarlais said in 2016.
Most recently, DesJaralais issued a statement in response to Biden’s State of the Union address last month. He said Biden’s speech “was incredibly divisive and an attempt to win over the most far Left in his party” and that the speech was “calloused and he never once accepted responsibility for the damage and destruction he has caused our great Nation.”
“This speech was not that of a President of the United States, but that of a man no longer completely in control of his own thoughts and emotions and being controlled on the strings of his far-Left puppeteers,” DesJaralais said
Not far behind DesJaralais in terms of relative immorality was another staunch anti-abortion Republican, former Rep. Timothy Murphy, R-Pa., who served seven terms in Congress from 2003 until his resigned in 2017.
In October 2017, Murphy, a psychologist, urged a mistress and fellow forensic psychologist to have an abortion, despite his strict public anti-abortion stance. The affair came to light in the course of Murphy’s divorce proceedings. Allegations also surfaced of endemic abuse and harassment in his congressional office. Murphy resigned immediately following publicity about the scandals.
The day before he resigned, Murphy voted in favor of a Republican bill to criminalize abortions performed after 20 weeks. Murphy was a member of the House Pro-Life Caucus and was a co-sponsor of the bill.
Other notables who survived dramatic scandals include the late, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. In 1969, Mary Jo Kopechne was a passenger who drowned after Kennedy drove his car off a bridge in Chappaquiddick, Mass. Kennedy was elected to seven more terms.
Rep. Gerry Studds, D-Mass., admitted in 1983 to having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old male Congressional page. The admission stemmed from a House Ethics Committee investigation into Studds and Rep. Dan Crane, R-Ill. Crane, who admitted having a relationship with a 17-year-old female intern. Crane was defeated for re-election, but Studds kept his seat until he retired in 1997.
Former Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., an openly gay congressman, was reprimanded by the House in 1990 for his involvement with Stephen Gobie, a male escort and convicted drug user. Gobie was allegedly running a prostitution ring from Frank’s Capitol Hill apartment. Frank denied knowledge of any illegal activity and easily won re-election.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., in Congress from 2005 to 2017, was a client of a prostitution service run by Deborah Jeanne Palfrey, the so-called, “D.C. Madam.” In 2007, Vitter’s name was found on billing records for Palfrey’s escort service. Vitter later apologized for his actions but no criminal charges were lodged as the incident exceeded the statute of limitations. He was overwhelmingly re-elected to the Senate in 2010.
Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford resigned his post as chairman of the Republican Governors Association in 2009 after his rendezvous in Argentina with a mistress made headlines. His marriage ended but Sanford later ran and won back the state’s First Congressional District seat, the same post he held before becoming governor.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas endured a bitter confirmation battle after allegations that he had sexually harassed Anita Hill, a former staffer who served under him at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Thomas was confirmed by the Senate 52–48 and is still a controversial member of the High Court.
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., was found guilty in 2010 of 11 ethics violations, including accepting four apartments at hundreds of dollars per month below market value, failing to declare hundreds of thousands of dollars of personal assets and seeking a $1 million contribution to the Rangel Center from a company executive. The House Ethics Committee found him guilty on 11 counts, and the full House voted 333–79 to censure Rangel. In 2012, Rangel was re-elected to Congress.