Who were the most corrupt politicians in US history? Insider Monkey has recently published an interesting article about this topic. There are many ways of how a corrupted country is hampering the economic development. Corruption is stealing the wealth of the nation, and it is impoverishing its people. The economic growth rate is depending on the corruption rate, the higher the corruption rate is in one country, the lower its economic growth will be. Corruption affects one country not only by reducing the investment and the economic growth as we already mentioned, but also by providing poor maintenance of public infrastructure and by reducing foreign direct investment.
The United States had 45 presidents including the newly elected Donald Trump. Not all of them were perfect, and not all of them contributed to the country as they promised during their presidential campaigns. There are a lot of presidents for whom it wasn’t obvious to the ordinary people that they were corrupted, or there was simply no evidence of their corruption.
Now without a further ado let’s see what Insider Monkey has investigated for us. We have picked one politician from their list.
Boss Tweed was the New York’s corruption king. During the years of corruption, his associates established a network of corruption. This system later became known among people as the “Tweed Ring.” Even though he wasn’t a lawyer, Tweed opened a law office back in 1860, and he used it for receiving large payments for his ‘legal services’ from corporations. Shortly after he opened the office, he gathered an insane amount of illegal cash, and he used it to buy acres of Manhattan’s real estate. Since that wasn’t enough to spend his fortune, he started wearing large diamonds attached to his shirt. Eight years later, in 1868, Tweed was elected to the New York State Senate, and he officially started to drain the city. When the citizens of New York finally realized what he was doing to the city and their money, they began to support the efforts to oust him. In 1873, Tweed was convinced for forgery and larceny, but he was released two years later. However, shortly after his release, the New York State sued him in order to try and recover some of the money he embezzled, and he was arrested again.
For any further interesting information read Insider Monkey’s article about 10 most corrupt politicians in US history.
