Official Misconduct Quotes

The main thing is the ‘rule of corruption’: helping the horse both to race and also to get a mouthful of hay. It’s what all civil servants are secretly thinking. Our expectations for our civil servants are far too high, far too grandiose. The pressure is more than their flesh-and-blood bodies can stand.

We must uphold the fighting of tigers and flies at the same time, resolutely investigating law-breaking cases of leading officials and also earnestly resolving the unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems which happen all around people.

We shouldn’t be lending money to corrupt officials. We should be guarded in our generosity.

I rise to perform a painful but, nevertheless, to me, an imperative duty; a duty which I think ought not longer to be postponed, and which cannot, without criminality on our part, be neglected.… I charge Andrew Johnson, Vice President and acting President of the United States, with the commission of acts which in contemplation of the Constitution, are high crimes and misdemeanors, for which, in my judgment, he ought to be impeached … I do impeach Andrew Johnson, Vice President and acting President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors: I charge him with a usurpation of power and violation of law: In that he has corruptly used the appointing power; In that he has corruptly used the pardoning power; In that he has corruptly used the veto power; In that he has corruptly disposed of public property of the United States; In that he has corruptly interfered in elections…

Our government is corrupt.

When the Vice President of the United States shoots somebody, the public has the right to know.

Police are inevitably corrupted. ... Police always observe that criminals prosper. It takes a pretty dull policeman to miss the fact that the position of authority is the most prosperous criminal position available.

There are counties where bribes must be paid in order to get anything done

Don't engage with corrupt officials under any circumstances. The results are always bad.

Corrupt officials are usually close-mouthed and open-handed.

Corruption is when people in public office use that public office for private or selfish ends. This is one of the most central debates in the last 40 years in law, what is corruption.

If public officers will infringe men's rights, they ought to pay greater damages than other men, to deter and hinder other officers from the like offences.

According to the weight of opinion, impeachable offenses include, not merely acts that are indictable, but serious misbehavior which may be considered as coming within the category of high crimes and misdemeanors

If the president were to displace from office a man whose merits require that he should continue in it… he will be impeachable by this House before the Senate, for such an act of mal-administration; for I contend that the wanton removal of meritorious officers would subject him to impeachment and removal from his own high trust.

I came to office promising major ethics reform to end the culture of self-dealing. And today, that ethics reform is a law. While I was at it, I got rid of a few things in the governor's office that I didn't believe our citizens should have to pay for. That luxury jet was over-the-top. I put it on eBay.

Here is where you get into the danger zone, when the government official starts talking about U.S. government business and then also talking about what personal business favors they might want. And when the conversation goes down that road, it does risk crossing the line into solicitation of a bribe.

Pomp corrupts church officials

I think anytime that somebody that works for the government lies, yes, they should be removed.

The moment I decided to blow the whistle on a lot of the corruption going on in the White House, there are protections that are afforded to me.

The problem with having an all-encompassing privacy law … is the protection it gives to those who don’t merit protection. [Corrupt officials]

I initiated the State's investigation of Governor Blagojevich and have prosecuted public officials, including a sitting democratic state representative and democratic State's Attorney.

I have never been bribed as a Prime Minister.

That our judges, counts, or envoys shall not have a right to extort payment of the remitted fine, on their own behalf…

As New York's chief law enforcement officer, I have taken a hard line against those in state government who abuse the law they have sworn to uphold.

As a government employee, you can't testify against the government.