Presidents and Political Scandal

This book explores presidential power through an analysis of the ways that U.S. presidents attempt to manage scandals. While presidents routinely stonewall to block or limit investigations into their alleged transgressions or, in some cases, cooperate with investigators, this book proposes the existence of a third way of responding to scandals—a “backfire” or the creation of a counter-scandal to try to extinguish the original scandal. The existence of possible backfires is surveyed through case