In his Jan. 23 op-ed, "Trump should admit he got lucky," Richard Cohen made some good points about how luck can affect the presidency, but in comparing President Trump with his predecessor, Mr. Cohen made the astonishing claim that President Barack Obama was able to "come into and out of office with not a whiff of scandal."

"Fast and Furious" was an Obama administration operation meant to track illegal guns going to Mexican drug lords. It went badly awry and led to the death of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. It also led to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. being held in contempt of Congress (17 Democrats voted in agreement) after refusing to disclose Justice Department documents for a congressional investigation.

The Obama administration said the attack on U.S. diplomatic posts in Benghazi, Libya, leading to the deaths of an ambassador and three other Americans, was caused by an inflammatory video, knowing it was caused by an Islamist militant group.

During the Obama presidency, the Internal Revenue Service targeted nonprofit conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, delaying or denying them that status based on their politics, or in some cases their conservative-sounding names. After a lawsuit by more than 400 of those groups, a settlement was reached in which the IRS agreed to pay an undisclosed but "very substantial" sum of money.

Not a whiff of scandal?

Bruce G. Kauffmann, Alexandria