Home assignment 2

Amelie De Angelis (592783)

Group 73

Tutor: Jess Fowler

Erasmus School of Social Behavior Sciences

Rotterdam, 27th November 2022

Total Word Count: X

CASE 1:

In July 2003, Joseph Wilson – a former CIA envoy to Niger – released an op-ed in the New

York Times exposing that George W. Bush’s used an unsubstained argument to justify war.

As a matter of fact, his previous experiences in Niger showed that the president’s claim that

Iraq had attempted to buy uranium from Niger was false. A couple of weeks later, Robert

Novak – a right-wing commentator – published a column in the Washington Post revealing

that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA operative, thus blowing her cover and

compromising her work for the CIA. Wilson accused the White House of leaking her identity

to punish him, and after an investigation lead by a special prosecutor, a former deputy

secretary of state was revealed to likely have been the one to share Plame’s identity (Pruitt,

2019).

CASE 2

While running for president in 1992, Clinton had to deal with scandals and past rumors of

marital infidelity. While both Bill and Hilary Clinton denied that the president had any

extramarital affairs, Arkansas state employee Flowers admitted to having carried a

relationship with the president for 12 years. Six years later, Monica Lewinsky claimed to

have had a sexual encounter with Bill Clinton. While initially he denied these claims, trying

to uphold his reputation, he later admitted to having an inappropriate liaison with Lewinsky.

Later, he was impeached on claims of perjury, and the Senate voted to acquit President

Clinton (When Power Corrupts: 16 of the Biggest Political Scandals of the Last, 2016).
REFERENCE LIST

Pruitt, S. (2019, April 11). The Long, Complicated History of Political Leaks. HISTORY.

https://www.history.com/news/9-leaks-that-changed-the-world

When power corrupts: 16 of the biggest political scandals of the last. (2016, June 9).

Washington Week. https://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/blog-post/when-

power-corrupts-16-biggest-political-scandals-last-50-years