If you think Donald Trump has cornered the market on outrageous behavior, think again. SPYSCAPE has rounded up 10 audacious cases of politicians behaving (very) badly.
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John Edwards, former US Democrat and Senator from North Carolina

The high-flying career of Senator John Edwards, a presidential candidate, came crashing down in 2008. Edwards initially denied an extramarital affair with filmmaker Rielle Hunter - even after Hunter gave birth to their daughter. Andrew Young, a member of Edwards' campaign team, told ABC News that Edwards asked him to "Get a doctor to fake the DNA results... and to steal a diaper from the baby so he could secretly do a DNA test to find out if this [was] indeed his child." In 2010, Edwards finally admitted fathering the child, calling his conduct ‘wrong’. He returned to practicing personal injury law, his political career in shambles.

Senator Ted Kennedy & Chappaquiddick

Late one evening in July 1969, Senator Ted Kennedy’s car careened off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, a playground for the rich. Kennedy had been at a party with Mary Jo Kopechne and she drowned in his ‘67 Oldsmobile. Did Kennedy flag down a passing car? Call the police? No, the 37-year-old - who had his eyes on the presidency - asked his lawyer and friends for advice and eventually returned to his hotel. Kennedy later said he dove into the murky current to find Kopechne but gave up. She remained submerged for nine hours until her body was discovered in the car. There was no autopsy. Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident causing bodily injury. His two-month sentence was suspended.

John Stonehouse, British Minister of State for Technology‍

When British Cabinet Minister John Stonehouse (portrayed by actor Matthew Macfadyen, above) was unmasked as a Czechoslovakian spy, he left a pile of clothes near a Miami beach hoping to fake his death in 1974. Instead, he was arrested in Australia where he lived with his mistress, leaving behind his wife of 25 years, three children, and a pile of debts. Stonehouse was using the identity of a former constituent when he was found. In order to identify Stonehouse, police asked him to pull down his trousers so they could ensure he wasn’t Lord Lucan, another Brit who’d ‘disappeared’. (Lucan had a six-inch scar on his thigh.) Incredibly, Stonehouse continued working as an MP while in prison.

Boris Johnson, former British Prime Minister

During a 2012 celebration to mark Britain’s Olympic Games, then-London Mayor Boris Johnson rode a 1,050ft zip wire and soon dangled helplessly, stuck in the air for five minutes. It’s far from Johnson’s only stunt. In 2019, Prime Minister Johnson was so keen to avoid a live interview on Good Morning Britain he hid in a large fridge while the cameras rolled to avoid journalist Piers Morgan’s questions. In 2022 - while the world was in Covid-19 panic mode - the PM reportedly joked about attending the ‘UK’s most unsocially distanced party’. He was also fined for attending his birthday party while the rest of the UK was locked down. Johnson maintains he followed the rules.
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Italian politician Silvio Berlusconi’s ‘Bunga Bunga’ party problem

For a while, it seemed every day brought a new scandal or court appearance featuring former Italian PM and multimillionaire playboy Silvio Berlusconi. It appeared the PM might even land in prison but in February 2023, an Italian court acquitted Berlusconi over allegations of bribing witnesses in an underage prostitution scandal. Berlusconi was accused of paying 24 people - mostly young guests at his ‘Bunga Bunga’ parties - to provide false testimony. The PM was also accused of paying for sex with a 17-year-old dancer known as ‘Ruby the heart stealer' but he was found not guilty.

Colorado Senator Gary Hart, presidential hopeful 

Yale-trained lawyer and Senator Gary Hart rose to become the Democratic Party’s leading candidate for President in the ‘80s, yet there were whispers about his extramarital affair. In a 1987 New York Times interview, Hart challenged journalists to follow him around, promising they’d be ‘very bored’. A few days later, NBC anchor John Chancellor reported, "We did. We weren’t." The Colorado senator withdrew his candidacy five days later. Hart then reentered the race and withdrew again after winning just 4 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary. His political career was over after the publication of Hart with model Donna Rice in his lap aboard an 83-foot luxury yacht named Monkey Business. 

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Ray Mawby, British Conservative Member of Parliament, 1955 to 1983‍

British MP Ray Mawby was a gambler. He particularly liked the roulette wheel but often found himself on the losing end of the spin. That led Mawby - codename Laval - to a career in espionage where he boosted his MP earnings by leaking secrets to his communist handlers in East Europe. Security Service files uncovered by the BBC showed Mawby was on their payroll for a decade while working in Parliament. He allegedly supplied foreign spies with a floor plan of the PM’s office and intel about a confidential parliamentary investigation into a Conservative peer. Still, some voters believed Mawby was a better MP than his successor, Henry Vivian, described as a ‘practical mystic’.

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Aaron Jon Schock, former Republican US Representative, Illinois‍

Arron Schock’s career started promisingly; at age 27, he was the youngest member of Congress in 2009 but Schock had a problem with the spending rules. The Washington Post reported in 2015 that Schock's Congressional offices were redecorated in the aristocratic style of the Downton Abbey series. He was indicted in 2016 on 24 counts, including wire fraud and theft of government funds but reached an agreement with federal prosecutors to reimburse the funds if the charges were dropped. Schock said he had never watched Downton Abbey, calling it a ‘dog whistle’ to tease him about his sexuality. In 2020, Schock came out as gay. 

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British Lord Jeffrey Archer, multimillionaire novelist and politician

Lord Jeffrey Archer, bestselling author of Kane and Abel and disgraced Conservative peer was jailed in 2001 for lying during a libel case about his hiring of prostitute Monica Coghlan. Archer initially won £500,000 ($610,000) in damages against the Daily Star by perjuring himself in the High Court but at a later trial was forced to repay the Star £1.5m - the extra money to cover the newspaper’s legal costs. He served half of his sentence and remained in Britain’s House of Lords as there was no legal provision at the time to remove him. While in prison, Archer wrote his memoir, A Prison Diary, fashioned after Dante's Divine Comedy.
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Northern Ireland’s Mrs. Robinson

It is certainly not just men who behave badly. Iris Robinson was a 60-year-old, born-again Christian, a Democratic Unionist Party politician from Northern Ireland, and part of a power couple in 2008. Her husband, Peter, was Northern Ireland’s first minister.

So it was with shock and awe that Iris hit the headlines over her affair with 19-year-old Kirk McCambley, who she’d known since Kirk was a toddler. (And yes, the tabloids rejoiced in calling her ‘Mrs. Robinson’.)

Iris’ affair ‘convulsed’ Northern Ireland, according to The Guardian. After the death of Kirk’s father, their platonic relationship turned romantic but the story didn’t end there. During a walk, Mrs. Robinson showed her young lover a cafe development and encouraged Kirk to draw up a business plan. She knew two property developers who’d invest £50,000 ($62,000) and wanted a £5,000 kickback to arrange the deal.

The May-December love affair soon ended but Kirk’s £45,000 debt was outstanding. Iris wanted it paid back - half of it to her account and the rest to a church where her relative was a pastor. In a statement, Mrs. Robinson later called the affair ‘the worst thing I have ever done’ and said it was linked to her battle with depression. Prosecutors did not press charges. After it was disclosed that the married couple had received more than £570,000 in salaries and expenses in one year, Peter Robinson and his wife were dubbed the ‘Swish Family Robinson’.