Nothing like this has ever happened before.
Former President Donald Trump’s arraignment in Manhattan on Tuesday for his alleged role in a hush money scheme continued his streak of making dubious American history, as he became the first former or sitting commander-in-chief ever to be brought up on criminal charges.
Over the past half-century, Americans have endured one political scandal after another involving a president, sitting or former — from the Watergate scandal that derailed Richard Nixon’s presidency in 1972; to the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980s that put a black mark on Ronald Reagan’s tenure; to the Monica Lewinsky affair in 1998 that led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton; to Trump being impeached twice — once for an alleged extortion attempt with Ukraine in 2020, and again for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.
