Veteran ABC News reporter Sam Donaldson, 78, was arrested for driving under the influence in Lewes, Del. on Dec. 1, local WGMD radio reports.
The former ABC White House correspondent was pulled over for a traffic violation when Lewes police suspected he had been drinking. Donaldson failed the field sobriety test and was arrested for a DUI, and will appear in court early next year.
Donaldson has been with ABC News since 1967 for the network’s Washington bureau. He later became the White House correspondent, and then anchored ABC Sunday Evening News for a decade.
He co-anchored “This Week” with Cokie Roberts from 1996 to 2002, and now serves as a frequent panelist.
Donaldson has a reputation for his feisty reporting style and his famous confrontation with President George W. Bush in 2006. After actor Mel Gibson went on his first reported anti-semitic tirade (during a DUI arrest, no less), Donaldson asked the president if he thought Gibson should be forgiven.
Bush looked to see who answered the question and said, “You’re a has-been. We don’t have to answer has-been’s questions,” the Washington Post reported at the time.
Donaldson shot back, “Better to have been a has-been than a never was.”