Talk:List of American federal politicians convicted of crimes

Ronald Reagan indictments and convictions

The article appears to be missing many Reagan Administration officials who were indicted and/or convicted for things done during his administration. Coleman1963! (talk) 20:01, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Another Wikipedia article, "Scandals of the Reagan Administration", begins with the following statement with detail following it:

"The presidency of Ronald Reagan was marked by numerous scandals, resulting in the investigation, indictment or conviction of over 138 administration officials, the largest number for any president of the United States."

I think the current article should be updated to include the many officials in the Reagan administration who meet the current article's criteria. I realize that many of them were pardoned by G.H.W. Bush, but they were still indicted and convicted. A more difficult question is whether you include a mention of the officials who were indicted but pardoned before trial, and whether you include officials who were indicted and convicted but then had the conviction overturned on a trial technicality and were then not re-tried or were pardoned. Anyway, I think this article should be updated to include at least the convicted officials particularly considering it was a record number. Coleman1963! (talk) 20:42, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

The scope of the article is as follows:

"This list consists of American politicians convicted of crimes either committed or prosecuted while holding office in the federal government. It includes politicians who were convicted or pleaded guilty in a court of law; and does not include politicians involved in unprosecuted scandals (which may or may not have been illegal in nature), or politicians who have only been arrested or indicted. The list also does not include crimes that occur outside the politician's tenure unless they specifically stem from acts while they were in office. It does not include convictions which were vacated (e.g. Ted Stevens (R), but does include convictions that were pardoned)."

If there are Reagan Administration officials who meet such criteria and are not currently listed, please add them. However, please note that the Wikipedia article that you quoted refers to the "investigation, indictment or conviction of over 138 administration officials" from the Reagan Administration, but (i) that "or" is huge, and only those who were convicted (or pled guilty) and whose convictions were not overturned on appeal can be listed, and (ii) it is possible that the number includes, say, low-level career employees at the IRS convicted of forgery or something, who would not be "politicians" under any reasonable definition of the word (heck, they wouldn't even be political appointees). AuH2ORepublican (talk) 12:58, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

MISSING

What about Talib or Shchiff both were censured for their crimes. What about G Santos who was thrown out of congress, what about AOC mis using campagin funds, what about Omar Ilhan who married her brother for a green card? 2603:9000:8502:191D:B479:9E63:D6AC:95F6 (talk) 21:48, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

The name of the article is "List of American federal politicians convicted of crimes." Even before you read the article's introduction, that should give you a clue as to why federal officeholders that have not been convicted of a crime don't appear on the list. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 04:18, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Donald Trump

So since the addition of former president Trump to this list has been reverted, I'll be the first to raise the question of how this article should deal with it here.

In my view, Donald Trump's recent conviction for falsification does fall within the scope of this article, which documents "American politicians convicted of crimes either committed or prosecuted while holding office in the federal government. The user who removed him from the list, @AuH2ORepublican, makes the argument that he was convicted after his term expired (true) for crimes that took place before it (false). In making this argument, the user incorrectly states that Trump was convicted for "payments to Stormy Daniels in 2016 to cover up a federal campaign-finance crime in 2016". This is a common misreading of the case; he was in fact convicted not for making payments to Stormy Daniels, but for actions he took to cover up that the payments had been made, i.e. directing Michael Cohen to make false statements in his business records. A cursory look at the indictment shows that the crimes were committed between February and December of 2017, whereas Trump took office on January 20.

AuH2ORepublican also contests Trump's inclusion under the section on his presidency rather than the current administration, arguing that the conviction occurred under Joe Biden, even if Trump did not hold office under him. Although this argument is reasonable, it is inconsistent with how other convicted members of the executive branch have been dealt with on this list, which lists them by the administration with which they served. For example, William P. MacCracken Jr. was convicted during FDR's term but is included under the Calvin Coolidge presidency. Likewise, the conviction of Maurice Stans occurred under Gerald Ford, but he is listed under Nixon. TRCRF22 (talk) 22:36, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

@User:TRCRF22, it seems to me that the main elements of the crime for which Trump was convicted took place in 2016, even if the false characterization of the payments to Cohen did take place during 2017. Without the 2016 actions, there would have been no crime, much less a crime that could have been prosecuted in 2024; the statute of limitations for charging him for the 2017 falsification of corporate records expired long ago, and the prosecution could go forward only because the falsification of records was deemed a felony (whose statute of limitation was longer) done to cover up other crimes, all of which were committed in 2016. That being said, if you can obtain a consensus for the position that Trump's conviction was for crimes committed in 2017, then of course you can revert my reversion (although I would recommend that you also specify that the conviction was for the falsification of corporate records between February and December of 2017 and provide a link to an article regarding his conviction thar also specifies such fact).

As to where to locate the conviction if there is a consensus that it meets the criteria for the article, you are absolutely correct that it should be under the Trump presidency. That makes all of the sense in the world, because the inclusion would be for crimes committed during the years of the Trump presidency, and I see now that you are correct that that's how prior examples of convicted Executive Branch figures similarly were located within the presidencies during which the crimes were committed. When I suggested otherwise, I had been thrown off by the fact that several recent convictions of federal legislative officers had been placed within the presidency at the time of post-office conviction instead of the presidency at the time in which the legislstor was in office and committed the crime. For instance, Steve Stockman left Congress over two years before the start of the Trump presidency, yet is listed under the Trump, not Obama, presidency because his conviction took place when Trump was president. I think that, for the sake of consistency, such entries should be moved to the presidencies during which the convicted legislator committed the crime (and, if the crime straddled two presidencies, to the presidency during which he last held office. I will make those changes during the next few days, but if anyone wants to make the moves before then, that would be even better. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 06:43, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Amazing!

It's truly amazing how all the convictions of trump associates have somehow disappeared from the article or were never mentioned in the first place.