It’s a story as old as Adam and Eve. A husband facing accusations of misconduct blames his wife.
This is also an age-old bipartisan political strategy. This week, New Jersey Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Sen. Bob Menendez gave their wives the ring finger for episodes in which their respective men got into political or legal trouble.
Justice Alito, one of the Supreme Court’s most conservative members, described the upside-down American flag, a symbol of the Stop the Steal protests by Donald J. ” he told the New York Times. Trump supporters fly on poles on a family’s front lawn ahead of President Biden’s 2021 inauguration. According to the Times, the judge’s wife, Martha Ann Alito, was involved in a feud with a neighbor over an anti-Trump sign at the time.
In the case of Mr. Menendez, a Democrat, it was his lawyer who made the accusation. In federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday, attorney Avi Weitzman blamed the senator’s wife and her financial difficulties for what prosecutors described as a bribery scheme involving foreign governments and hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts. did.
“She tried to obtain cash and assets in every way possible,” Weitzman told jurors. “She kept him quiet about what she wanted from other people.” (Menendez is also charged in the case, but will be tried separately after being diagnosed with breast cancer. She maintains her innocence. (However, her attorney declined to comment.)
Holding the accused cheating spouse accountable may help alleviate immediate pressure on public officials, but it inevitably exposes the most intimate of partnerships to scrutiny and disdain.
And of course, there’s the reputational and interpersonal fallout from throwing your wife under the bus.
“Given that women generally have higher ethical standards than men, and that we expect women to condemn behavior that men routinely condone, it is important for men to blame their wives for their misdeeds to protect themselves from criticism. “I now understand how you can think about what you can do,” he said. Jennifer Palmieri is a political strategist who is familiar with spousal disputes as she worked on the presidential campaigns of John Edwards and Hillary Clinton. “But not when your wife is involved. You just look like a coward.”
Avoiding political debate and directly inserting one’s wife into it is bound to invite accusations of sexism. This is because it often plays on negative stereotypes of manipulative, ambitious, or status-obsessed political wives with uncontrollable emotions and an outsized sense of entitlement.
Justice Alito’s arguments regarding Mrs. Alito seem to place her in a different category. In other words, she is a wife whose opinions are strongly held and are not advertised wisely and are a professional responsibility of her husband. (Neither has been charged with a crime or formally accused of wrongdoing.)
Political spouse scandals often arise from the inevitable marital breakdown that occurs when one spouse takes a high-profile job that, at least in theory, is bound by specific laws and codes of ethics. Not only does it force a spouse into a new public role, but it also means that if something goes wrong, they can become the natural scapegoat, whether they accept it or not. .
“This is not normal behavior. This is not a normal marital dispute,” said former Congressman Brian Baird. A Democrat from Washington state, he worked as a clinical psychologist for two decades before serving more than a dozen years in Congress. “Many of us experience marital discord, but that discord does not involve making excuses for highly questionable behavior, self-interest, or behavior that undermines the political system itself. .”
One of the most important public corruption cases in recent decades focused on the marriage of Republican former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell.
Mr. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, faced federal charges stemming from more than $165,000 in loans and gifts given to their family by executives at a nutritional supplement company. At her 2014 trial, Ms McDonnell’s lawyers said the couple were too estranged for a conspiracy, and used her witness’s description of her as a “lunatic” to claim that she had stolen money on her luxury goods. He said he became obsessed with it.
(Blaming the wife can be a good legal strategy, since spouses cannot be forced to testify against each other if guilty.)
Mr McDonnell, defending himself, told the jury his wife was disappointed in her financial situation and was “overwhelmed” by the stress of her role in public life. Both men were convicted, but their convictions were later overturned by a unanimous 2016 Supreme Court ruling relaxing federal bribery laws. He filed for divorce three years later.
Like Menendez and McDonnell, the wives of politicians face legal repercussions that go beyond public condemnation.
Former Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Calif., who was charged in 2018 with stealing campaign funds to support a lavish lifestyle, said his wife was responsible for the couple’s finances. Both later pleaded guilty to corruption charges.
Also, professional ambitions and private transgressions are so closely intertwined that even when neither partner directly accuses the other, public accusations can flow freely between them. There are some couples.
While Ms. Clinton was first lady, her husband’s opponents on the political right painted her as dangerous and manipulative. Thereafter, her own political aspirations came into frequent, sometimes very unpleasant, conflict with her husband’s infidelity and her post-presidential job.
In some cases, a spouse’s political role or outside work may complicate a partner’s official duties.
Another Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, announced his resignation or resignation after his wife, Virginia Thomas, a longtime right-wing activist, revealed in her communications that she was trying to overturn the 2020 election results. We are facing the voice of demand.
Additionally, former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away in 2020, faced criticism for not recusing herself from cases in which her husband, tax attorney Martin Ginsburg, was directly or indirectly involved. Ta.
Of course, men in Washington state may get admonished by their wives if they misbehave. Just this week, we watched as Georgia Republican Rep. Rich McCormick filed for divorce and publicly hinted that his wife, Debra Miller, had been having an affair with her fellow lawmaker.
Women who hold public office may also run into trouble because of their boyfriends. In 2020, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) responded to reports that her husband tried to coax a marina owner into putting his boat in the water before the Memorial Day rush. She criticized her husband’s “poor humor.” State Covid lockdown policy.
Before Carol Moseley Brown became a Democratic senator from Illinois in 1993, she came under fire for accusing her boyfriend, who was also her campaign manager, of sexually harassing a female campaign staffer.
Moseley-Brown said in an interview Friday that her political advisers at the time blamed her boyfriend and advised her to distance herself from him.
“I thought it was cowardly to do that,” she said. “I said, ‘This person hasn’t done anything wrong.'”
The typical attitude of those in power in Washington is the opposite, she says.
“They’re just blaming someone other than me,” she said. “And the closest person to me is this woman right here, and you can kick her around all you want.”
benjamin weiser and katie edmondson Contributed to the report.
