15 other presidents who were caught up in salacious sex scandals before Trump's Stormy Daniels saga

Porn star Stormy Daniels' allegations of an affair with President Donald Trump are some of the most salacious to be made against a president. Daniels, an adult film star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, says she had an affair with Trump at a Lake Tahoe celebrity golf tournament in 2006. Former Playboy playmate Karen

2018-04-09T13:04:00Z

Porn star Stormy Daniels' allegations of an affair with President Donald Trump are some of the most salacious to be made against a president.

Daniels, an adult film star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, says she had an affair with Trump at a Lake Tahoe celebrity golf tournament in 2006. Former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal recently made similar allegations against the president, who prior to taking office was accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen women. Trump denies all of the allegations against him.

While those allegations have garnered much media attention, and have followed the president throughout his first term, they are far from the only such allegations made against an occupant of the Oval Office. Trump is no stranger to such scandals, and neither is the presidency.

More than a third of the men who've occupied the Oval Office have been either accused of sexual misconduct, alleged to have had an affair, fathered a child out of wedlock with someone they were conducting such an affair with, or boasted of their extramarital sexual escapades.

Here's a history of the presidential sex scandal:

George Washington

George Washington. Wikimedia Commons

The country's first president was alleged to have fathered children with a slave named Venus who lived on his family's Virginia estate. In 1999, The New York Times reported that the slave's descendants were seeking a DNA test to prove they were related to Washington.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson. Wikipedia

Jefferson was accused of fathering children with a slave, Sally Hemings, during his first term in office. Jefferson's wife had died while he was vice president and he held a large plantation estate in Virginia. A 1998 DNA test linked two Hemings descendants to Jefferson.

Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson. AP

Jackson came under fire for his marriage to Rachel Donelson Robards because the two wed before she was legally divorced from her previous marriage.

William Henry Harrison

William Henry Harrison. Wikipedia

The shortest-tenured president in history, Harrison was believed to have possibly engaged in a relationship with one of his slaves, Dilsia. Her ancestors claimed she had six children with Harrison, who died after serving for 32 days.

John Tyler

John Tyler. Wikipedia

Tyler, who served following Harrison's death, was accused by an abolitionist writer of fathering children with one of his Virginia slaves, The Washington Post reported.

James Garfield

James Garfield. Wikipedia

Garfield, another short-tenured president, was alleged to have carried out an extramarital affair in 1862 while he was a Civil War general.

Grover Cleveland

Grover Cleveland. Wikimedia Commons

Cleveland, the only president to serve two, non-consecutive terms in the Oval Office, was faced with quite a report during his first campaign for the White House. The Buffalo Evening Telegraph broke a story that Cleveland, 10 years prior to his presidential bid, had a child with a woman named Maria Halpin. Halpin was then sent to a psychiatric asylum while the child was adopted by another family. 

Halpin would later say that her affair with Cleveland was not consensual, alleging that she was raped. Cleveland denied those allegations and won the presidency. His campaign said the affair happened while he was unmarried. 

As Vice wrote, Cleveland got Halpin commissioned to the asylum, saying that she was sleeping around with married men.

Warren Harding

Warren Harding. Wikimedia Commons

Harding, the nation's 29th president, was long believed to have fathered a child out of his marriage. Harding was said to have done so with Nan Britton, whom he had an affair with while in office.

Harding died in office before his first term was up, but a recent DNA test found that he did indeed father a child with Britton. It was rumored at the time of his death in 1923 that Harding's wife, Florence, had poisoned him.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt. AP Photo

Roosevelt carried out a longtime affair with his wife Eleanor's secretary, Lucy Mercer. The affair, as BuzzFeed wrote, likely began in 1916. Eleanor offered to divorce Roosevelt when she found love letters from Mercer in his suitcase, but she and Roosevelt stayed married.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight Eisenhower. AP Photo

Eisenhower carried out a lengthy affair with his driver, Kay Summersby, who would later detail the relationship after his death, BuzzFeed wrote. Former President Harry Truman told a writer that, in 1945, Eisenhower had asked a general's permission to divorce his wife so he could marry Summersby.

John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy. P Photo/William J. Smith

Kennedy had a number of high-profile, rumored affairs, most notably with movie star Marilyn Monroe. 

Kennedy said his father, Joseph Kennedy, told his sons to get "laid as often as possible," BuzzFeed wrote.

Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon B. Johnson. AP Photo

Johnson reportedly had a number of affairs, including one of 21 years with Madeleine Brown, BuzzFeed wrote. A Johnson biographer wrote that when "people mentioned Kennedy's many affairs, Johnson would bang the table and declare that he had more women by accident than Kennedy ever had on purpose."

George H.W. Bush

George H.W. Bush. AP/Ron Edmonds

The first Bush president faced allegations of affairs with two women, one being a White House staffer during his administration and another being a woman he allegedly carried out a relationship with in the 1960s. Bush denied both allegations.

Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton. AP Photo/Don Ryan

Clinton's sexual escapades and the allegations of misconduct against him were the most notable in recent memory prior to Trump.

The most high-profile incident involved his affair with Monica Lewinsky, though women such as Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, Kathleen Willey, Elizabeth War Gracen, and Juanita Broaddrick all levied accusations of sexual misconduct against him.

George W. Bush

George W. Bush. AP Photo/Seth Wenig

As BuzzFeed wrote, Bush was alleged of sexually assaulting a Texas woman who later committed suicide. He was also alleged to have engaged in an 18-month affair with a former stripper, with the affair concluding in 1999.

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