Five siblings who made life difficult for US presidents

The families of those seeking to win and take the highest office in the land typically understand their responsibilities, stick to the principles, and refrain from any actions that could harm their loved ones’ chances.

However, unforeseen situations occur in every family, and US presidents are no exception.

Here are the siblings of five presidents who prove that even as commander in chief, no one can embarrass you like your own family, from public indecency to embarrassing their brothers in geopolitical scandals.

Malik Obama

The 44th president’s half-brother, Malik, is not the supportive sibling Barack Obama might have hoped for, although the pair were initially close after first meeting in 1985 in Washington

Malik was a best man at Barack and Michelle’s wedding in 1992, led the ceremonies in Kenya after his brother’s election in 2008, and spoke at the 2013 GQ that it was he who convinced the former president to discover his African roots.

However, the Kenyan-American businessman has severed brotherly ties, using his name and position to criticize his brother’s past and express support for Donald Trump.

The problems started in 2016 when Malik said New York Post that he felt “deep disappointment” with his brother’s performance as president and blamed him for the death of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, whom he considered one of his closest friends.

Malik has since endorsed Donald Trump in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 elections.

He was also among a number of surprising guests — including women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment — invited by Trump to the 2016 presidential debates.

In 2020, Malik’s name became popular again after he revived a conspiracy theory about his half-brother’s citizenship by sharing an image of a fake birth certificate on Twitter that listed Barack’s place of birth as Mombasa, Kenya.

On Wednesday, Malik officially expressed his support for Trump’s election candidacy.

“I’m Malik Obama. I’m a registered Republican and I’m voting for President Donald Trump,” he wrote on X.

Roger Clinton Jr.

Bill’s younger half-brother, Roger Clinton, earned the nickname “Headache” from the Secret Service for the embarrassment he caused Clinton.

In 1985, while Bill was governor of Arkansas, Roger spent more than a year behind bars after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine.

Roger spent most of his brother’s two terms trying to leverage the Clinton name into a music and film career.

Despite appearing in such B-movie masterpieces as Pumpkinhead II: Bloody Wings AND Bio-domeRoger’s acting efforts never gained much notice, and his musical successes peaked in 1999 when he went on tour to Pyongyang, North Korea.

Negative media attention again attracted Roger in 2001 when it was revealed that he had received $50,000 and a gold Rolex from the children of Rosario Gambino, a convicted drug dealer and crime family member, in exchange for lobbying his brother for a pardon for the mobster.

Despite all this, Bill continued to be his brother’s guardian and pardoned Roger for cocaine trafficking in 1985, one of his last acts as president.

Roger quickly repaid his brother’s kindness and was arrested for drunk driving just a month later.

Donald Nixon

Donald Nixon, born Francis, was the younger brother of Richard Nixon and dreamed of following his brother’s political achievements and becoming a success in the fast-food industry.

In 1957, when his brother was serving as vice president under Dwight D. Eisenhower, Donald received a suspiciously generous donation of $205,000 from engineer and business tycoon Howard Hughes to bail out his failing California restaurant.

Although the drive-in theater went bankrupt, Hughes’s largesse was seen as an attempt to buy influence with Richard Nixon. Those suspicions surrounded his unsuccessful 1960 reelection campaign.

Accusations of corruption continued to surround Donald throughout Richard’s term as president, and during the Watergate investigation in 1973 it was revealed that Richard had ordered the Secret Service to tap his brother’s telephone.

Neil Bush

The career of Neil Bush, brother of George W. and son of George H.W., has been marked by numerous financial scandals.

In the 1980s, when his father was vice president, Neil Bush served as chairman of Silverado Savings and Loan, whose 1988 collapse cost taxpayers more than $1 billion.

For his role in the Silverado bankruptcy, Bush was investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which in 1991 found that Bush had used his position to make loans to people he had not informed his colleagues that they were his business partners and banned him from the banking industry.

In 1999, Bush was also charged with insider trading after he made nearly $800,000 in a single day after selling Kopin Corporation stock on the same day the company struck a lucrative deal with Japanese electronics company JVC.

Neil maintained that he had no prior knowledge of the deal, but his capacity for scandal continued when his brother took office in 2001.

In 2002, Bush signed a consulting contract with Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., although he later admitted he knew nothing about the semiconductor industry. The company promised him $2 million in stock over five years.

During his highly publicized divorce from Sharon Bush in 2003, Neil also admitted to several extramarital affairs during trips to Thailand and Hong Kong.

Billy Carter

Perhaps no one embodies this embarrassing sibling phenomenon better than Billy Carter, younger brother of 39th President Jimmy Carter.

Billy was the polar opposite of his devout brother, whose Southern Baptism and abstinence from alcohol only highlighted William Alton Carter’s extreme lifestyle.

President Carter, engaging in public displays of promiscuity, such as urinating on an Atlanta airport runway in front of reporters, and promoting an unsuccessful “Billy Beer” campaign to cash in on his drunken image, once claimed that it was easier for him to control the U.S. Senate than his own brother.

Though his behavior was often humorous, Billy found himself embroiled in a geopolitical scandal in the late 1970s, becoming a de facto envoy for the Libyan government.

Billy visited the North African country several times, hosted a Libyan delegation in Atlanta, and later received a $200,000 loan from Muamar Gaddafi’s government in exchange for facilitating oil trade with the U.S.

Jimmy expressed “concern” about his brother’s activities, which led to a 1980 Senate subcommittee investigation into “activities of persons representing the interests of foreign governments.”

The whole thing that was called “Billygate” Washington Poststill remains one of the most famous cases of fraternal shame.

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