James Traficant

"Am I different? Yeah. Deep down, you know you want to wear wider bottoms; you're just not secure enough... Do I do my hair with a Weed Whacker? I admit." "I wanted to have Playboy bunnies come on at night to meet with me. I wanted to be promiscuous with them."

Expelled from Congress, July 24, 2002.

From The Economist:

"Consider a recent exchange between James Traficant, a Democratic congressman from Youngstown, Ohio, and a woman called Sandra Ferrante. The occasion was the sombre meeting of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. The subject was whether Mr Traficant should be expelled from Congress. Ms Ferrante was a rare friendly witness:

Traficant: Were you and I sex partners?
Ferrante: No
Traficant: Why not?

"Congressman Traficant’s greatest controversy involves his claim that officers of the CIA were responsible for the murders of the 270 people who died as a result of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in December, 1988. Shortly after this terrorist attack, Traficant called a press conference, at which he claimed that a CIA drug trafficking scheme gone awry had allowed the bomb to be smuggled onboard. ABC News London correspondent Pierre Salinger then picked up the story, utilizing Traficant, government informant Lester Coleman, and private investigator Juval Aviv as his sources. Eventually, the Justice Department indicted two agents of Libyan Intelligence for the bombing and Traficant’s and Salinger’s CIA theory lost credibility as the press began to scrutinize its proponents."

Quotes

• "Janet Reno committed treason. She is a traitor. So sue me, Janet."

Timeline