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Do US Presidents Enrich Themselves in Office Like Lyndon Johnson?

Posted on 06/03/2014 9:06:27 AM PDT by pinochet

It is well known that Senators and Congressmen enrich themselves through book deals, speaking engagements, campaign finance cash, etc. When Lyndon Johnson was president, he was open in stealing money from the public treasury, a fact that even his strongest supporters acknowledge. Johnson left office with a net worth of tens of millions of dollars (if not more), which was a lot of money in 1969. When Nixon told the American people that he was not a crook, he was referring to Lyndon Johnson's corruption.

Is Lyndon Johnson the only person who enriched himself during the presidency, or are there others who did the same thing? If the media had evidence of such corruption, would they report it?


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Politics/Elections; US: Texas; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: corruption; lyndonjohnson; presidents
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Republican President, Warren Harding (1921-1923), also had a reputation as a corrupt President. This website mentions another Southern Democrat President, who is worth $80 million. http://www.therichest.com/celebnetworth/politician/president/bill-clinton-net-worth/
1 posted on 06/03/2014 9:06:27 AM PDT by pinochet
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To: pinochet

they are all corrupt.

They nearly all enter upper middle class, and leave super rich.


2 posted on 06/03/2014 9:08:37 AM PDT by TexasFreeper2009 (Obama lied .. the economy died.)
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To: pinochet
Obama’s retirement compound being built on Oahu is approaching the $100million mark. The media has been told not to think about it.
3 posted on 06/03/2014 9:09:40 AM PDT by ArtDodger
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To: pinochet

The Clintons did it so well even their millenial daughter was able to buy a $10m condo.
And they’re headed for a third lap.


4 posted on 06/03/2014 9:10:28 AM PDT by nascarnation (Toxic Baraq Syndrome: hopefully infecting a Dem candidate near you)
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To: pinochet

Grant and Truman were both paupers. But I think both were in office for the public service of it rather than to enrich themselves.


5 posted on 06/03/2014 9:11:15 AM PDT by Gen.Blather
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To: nascarnation
Does Jeb Bush need money?

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/15/Jeb-Bush-I-d-Strive-to-Be-Like-Lyndon-Johnson-if-Elected-President

6 posted on 06/03/2014 9:11:27 AM PDT by Just mythoughts (Jesus said Luke 17:32 Remember Lot's wife.)
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To: ArtDodger

Yup. He was a down and out pauper before getting in to the real world of politics. :>} He most likely won’t have a problem paying his necessarily skyrocketed energy bill. Of course he’ll probably have his own windmill and solar panels.


7 posted on 06/03/2014 9:12:25 AM PDT by rktman (Ethnicity: Nascarian. Race: Daytonafivehundrian)
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To: pinochet

Jeb Bush wants to govern like LBJ... remember that when the golfbag starts to puff up Jeb a couple of years from now..............

8 posted on 06/03/2014 9:12:51 AM PDT by fishtank (The denial of original sin is the root of liberalism.)
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To: pinochet

There is no other reason, for a democrat, to achieve political office other than to enrich himself and his friends & family.


9 posted on 06/03/2014 9:13:53 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: pinochet

Harry Reid comes to mind, as does Nancy Pelosi.


10 posted on 06/03/2014 9:17:23 AM PDT by Obadiah (Always remember that you're unique. Just like everyone else.)
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To: TexasFreeper2009

Harry Truman was an exception as was Calvin Coolidge. There are other examples but your point is well taken in that many benefited financially during and after their terms as president. And Senators and Congressional Representatives are no different.


11 posted on 06/03/2014 9:27:24 AM PDT by Hostage (ARTICLE V)
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To: TexasFreeper2009
they are all corrupt.

Not President Truman.

I would be interested to see some information on Nixon, Reagan, and the Bushes.

12 posted on 06/03/2014 9:28:08 AM PDT by oldbrowser (The only way to defeat this country is to turn us against each other.)
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To: pinochet

Can you say Bill Clinton?

They came with nothing and left taking millions, as well as art and antiquities belonging to the American people.


13 posted on 06/03/2014 9:32:23 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
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To: fishtank

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2007/07/the_honest_graft_of_lady_bird_johnson.html

The Honest Graft of Lady Bird Johnson - How she and Lyndon came by their millions.
By Jack Shafer


14 posted on 06/03/2014 9:38:51 AM PDT by abb
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To: TexasFreeper2009

LBJ was/is the rule and not the exception. LBJ was a horrid human being. Look at his record from his earliest days in Congress (1937). He used his power to destroy and bankrupt good and decent men for his own gain - from the damned near theft of a radio and subsequent TV station in Austin (with the heavy handed assist of the FCC), to Billy Sol Estes kickbacks on the fraudulent gas and grain silos and Bobby Baker kickbacks on the Serv-U vendor contracts on all government contractors working on military contracts.

Literally, the DAY JFK was shot, there was a Senate committee hearing wherein contractors were laying before the Senate physical documents detailing LBJ’s knowledge, complicity and receipt in kick-back schemes totaling millions of dollars. The meeting was interrupted with news of JFK’s assassination. Lawyers for the testifying witnesses grabbed all records off of the tables, placed them in briefcases, stated unequivocally that their witnesses now wished to recant their statements made earlier in the day. They KNEW that it was one thing to attack the Veep and another thing entirely to attack the Prez.


15 posted on 06/03/2014 9:46:35 AM PDT by Buckeye Battle Cry (Audentis Fortuna Iuvat)
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To: pinochet
Liberal historians hate Warren Harding because he dealt with the worst depression in US history up to that time by slashing the size of government, and getting out of the way of business. In short order the economy turned around and the boom times of the Roaring Twenties ensued. Compare that to Hoover/FDR’s handling of the same problems a decade later, and Obama’s incompetence today. Harding's administration was corrupt but I don't believe there is any evidence that he was personally.

Frank Vanderlip was a newspaper man that investigated Harding. He was asked about the subject. “I asked him whether he thought Harding or Wilson had either of them been personally corrupt and he answered instantly and vigorously, ‘Not at all, but I feel certain that thorough investigation would reveal a lamentable amount of corruption in their administrations’.”

http://www.marketskeptics.com/2010/03/frank-vanderlips-investigation-of.html

16 posted on 06/03/2014 9:47:06 AM PDT by SoCal Pubbie
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To: pinochet

Are you kidding? The thieving Clintons put away millions and left with an assortment of White House furnishings they were forced to return. I specifically recall the priceless Merano glass piece that Hillary somehow packed “by mistake.”


17 posted on 06/03/2014 9:52:07 AM PDT by txrefugee
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To: pinochet

At any given moment, there are usually only a handful of “lawmakers” from the President on down, who enter politics out of a sense of calling and a desire to restore Constitutional imperatives, and operate government responsibly and efficiently. But OF COURSE, they ALL employ that rhetoric going in, and it always gets highly modified soon enough, as the “realities” of going along in order to get along takes hold.

In the case of someone like LBJ,he, along with countless others before and after him, like Bill Clinton, ride into Power on the tried and true narrative that they’re men of the people, poor boys made good through pluck and determination,and the conviction that they are on the right and noble side of every issue. With the help of the MSM (even before it was called thie MSM) that message worked, as it was spread and disseminated out to the American electorate, worked sufficiently to get them elected and re-elected. On the “other side” of the political aisle, people like GHW and GW Bush are sold to us on The equally spurious premise that, because they are ALREADY rich, they don’t “have to” use elected office as a means of enriching themselves — this, presumably frees them up to concentrate on larger, more earth-shaking transformations, like a replay of Woodrow Wilson’s century-old plan to “make the world safe for Democracy”..We know by now how tragically wrong and wasteful virtually ALL goveernment policies ,domestically and globally, are, and how we PAY for these games that are played on the exclusive playground by the men we’ve given these jobs to. It’s the biggest racket going, as the “unsophisticated” Man on he Street has known for the past hundred years. The Political Elites have a vested interest in convincing us that ALL problems have political solutions, so they keep creating problems and polarizing, rather than uniting us.Though, THAT TOO, has become part of their rhetoric-—what was the overriding objective of he Obama Presidency, other than “uniting” us into a higher collectve project, which immediately devolved into the message to “Roll Over and Submit” to our AGENDA-—after all,51% of you voted for it!
We might as well get used to looking at the White House and Congress as the splendid mansions we pay for, to house our new Colonial Masters. For those few hundred million of us not fortunate enough to have found a way to situate ourselves somewhere on either. of their respective bandwagons, we will never have a way of benefiting from any gratuities that flow to us, courtesy of our gratuities,by way of taxes,that relentlessly flow to THEM. With American Politics, every election cycle asks us to “Change Partners and Dance”, to use the title of that old song. And, to invoke the title of an old movie “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”


18 posted on 06/03/2014 10:25:26 AM PDT by supremedoctrine
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To: Buckeye Battle Cry

ALL TRUE, BBC, but with LBJ that’s only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Especially as it relates to the JFK assassination, t he specter of Mac Wallace, and how the world changed on 11-22-63.Don’t get me started.


19 posted on 06/03/2014 10:30:59 AM PDT by supremedoctrine
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To: MrB

See my #18


20 posted on 06/03/2014 10:34:03 AM PDT by supremedoctrine
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