Lewinsky scandal

The Lewinsky scandal was an American political sex scandal that involved 49-year-old President Bill Clinton and 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The sexual relationship took place between 1995 and 1996 and came to light in 1998. Clinton ended a televised speech with the statement that he did not have sexual relations with Lewinsky. Further investigation led to charges of perjury and to the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998 by the U.S. House of Representatives. He was subsequently acquitted on all impeachment charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in a 21-day Senate trial.[1] Clinton was held in civil contempt of court by Judge Susan Webber Wright for giving misleading testimony in the Paula Jones case regarding Lewinsky[2] and was also fined $90,000 by Wright.[3] His license to practice law was suspended in Arkansas for five years; shortly thereafter, he was disbarred from presenting cases in front of the United States Supreme Court.[4]

Lewinsky was a graduate of Lewis & Clark College. She was hired during Clinton's first term in 1995 as an intern at the White House and was later an employee of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs. Some believe that Clinton began a personal relationship with her while she worked at the White House, the details of which she later confided to Linda Tripp, her Defense Department co-worker who secretly recorded their telephone conversations.[5]

In January 1998, Tripp discovered that Lewinsky had sworn an affidavit in the Paula Jones case, denying a relationship with Clinton. She delivered tapes to Kenneth Starr, the Independent Counsel who was investigating Clinton on other matters, including the Whitewater scandal, the White House FBI files controversy, and the White House travel office controversy. During the grand jury testimony, Clinton's responses were carefully worded, and he argued, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is,"[6] with regard to the truthfulness of his statement that "there is not a sexual relationship, an improper sexual relationship or any other kind of improper relationship."[7]

The wide reporting of the scandal led to criticism of the press for over-coverage.[8][9][10] The scandal is sometimes referred to as "Monicagate,"[11] "Lewinskygate,"[12] "Tailgate,"[13] "Sexgate,"[14] and "Zippergate,"[14] following the "-gate" nickname construction that has been popular since the Watergate scandal.

The improper relationship between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky was confirmed, but Clinton's marriage with Hillary Clinton survived the scandal.

Allegations of sexual contact

Monica Lewinsky in May 1997.

Lewinsky stated that she had sexual encounters with Bill Clinton on nine occasions from November 1995 to March 1997. According to her published schedule, First Lady Hillary Clinton was at the White House for at least some portion of seven of those days.[15]

In April 1996, Lewinsky's superiors relocated her job to the Pentagon, because they felt that she was spending too much time around Clinton.[16] According to his autobiography, then-United Nations Ambassador Bill Richardson was asked by the White House in 1997 to interview Lewinsky for a job on his staff at the UN. Richardson did so, and offered her a position, which she declined.[17] The American Spectator alleged that Richardson knew more about the Lewinsky affair than he declared to the grand jury.[18]

Lewinsky confided in Linda Tripp about her relationship with Clinton. Tripp persuaded Lewinsky to save the gifts that Clinton had given her, and not to dry clean a semen-stained blue dress. Tripp reported their conversations to literary agent Lucianne Goldberg, who advised her to secretly record them,[19] which Tripp began doing in September 1997. Goldberg also urged Tripp to take the tapes to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and bring them to the attention of people working on the Paula Jones case.[20] In the fall of 1997, Goldberg began speaking to reporters (notably Michael Isikoff of Newsweek) about the tapes.[21]

In the Paula Jones case, Lewinsky had submitted an affidavit that denied any physical relationship with Clinton. In January 1998, she attempted to persuade Tripp to commit perjury in the Jones case. Instead, Tripp gave the tapes to Starr, who was investigating the Whitewater controversy and other matters. Starr was now armed with evidence of Lewinsky's admission of a physical relationship with Clinton, and he broadened the investigation to include Lewinsky and her possible perjury in the Jones case.

Denial and subsequent admission
Remarks including response to Monica Lewinsky scandal (January 26, 1998)
Bill Clinton making a presentation that ends with a short commentary on the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The presentation is known for the quote "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." (6:20)
Remarks including response to Monica Lewinsky scandal (January 26, 1998)
audio only version
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News of the scandal first broke on January 17, 1998, on the Drudge Report,[22] which reported that Newsweek editors were sitting on a story by investigative reporter Michael Isikoff exposing the affair. The story broke in the mainstream press on January 21 in The Washington Post.[23] The story swirled for several days and, despite swift denials from Clinton, the clamor for answers from the White House grew louder. On January 26, President Clinton, standing with his wife, spoke at a White House press conference, and issued a forceful denial in which he said:[24]

Now, I have to go back to work on my State of the Union speech. And I worked on it until pretty late last night. But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people. Thank you.[25]

Pundits debated whether Clinton would address the allegations in his State of the Union Address. Ultimately, he chose not to mention them. Hillary Clinton remained supportive of her husband throughout the scandal. On January 27, in an appearance on NBC's Today she said, "The great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president."

For the next several months and through the summer, the media debated whether an affair had occurred and whether Clinton had lied or obstructed justice, but nothing could be definitively established beyond the taped recordings because Lewinsky was unwilling to discuss the affair or testify about it. On July 28, 1998, a substantial delay after the public break of the scandal, Lewinsky received transactional immunity in exchange for grand jury testimony concerning her relationship with Clinton.[26] She also turned over a semen-stained blue dress (that Linda Tripp had encouraged her to save without dry cleaning) to the Starr investigators, thereby providing unambiguous DNA evidence that could prove the relationship despite Clinton's official denials.[27]

Clinton admitted in taped grand jury testimony on August 17, 1998, that he had engaged in an "improper physical relationship" with Lewinsky. That evening he gave a nationally televised statement admitting that his relationship with Lewinsky was "not appropriate".[28]

Perjury charges

In his deposition for the Jones lawsuit, Clinton denied having sexual relations with Lewinsky. Based on the evidence—a blue dress with Clinton's semen that Tripp provided—Starr concluded that the president's sworn testimony was false and perjurious.

During the deposition, Clinton was asked "Have you ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, as that term is defined in Deposition Exhibit 1?" The judge ordered that Clinton be given an opportunity to review the agreed definition. Afterwards, based on the definition created by the Independent Counsel's Office, Clinton answered, "I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky." Clinton later stated, "I thought the definition included any activity by [me], where [I] was the actor and came in contact with those parts of the bodies" which had been explicitly listed (and "with an intent to gratify or arouse the sexual desire of any person"). In other words, Clinton denied that he had ever contacted Lewinsky's "genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks", and effectively claimed that the agreed-upon definition of "sexual relations" included giving oral sex but excluded receiving oral sex.[29]

Two months after the Senate failed to convict him, President Clinton was held in civil contempt of court by Judge Susan Webber Wright for giving misleading testimony regarding his sexual relationship with Lewinsky, and was also fined $90,000 by Wright.[2][3] Clinton declined to appeal the civil contempt of court ruling, citing financial problems,[2] but still maintained that his testimony complied with Wright's earlier definition of sexual relations.[2] In 2001, his license to practice law was suspended in Arkansas for five years and later by the United States Supreme Court.[4]

Impeachment

In December 1998, Clinton's Democratic political party was in the minority in both chambers of Congress. A few Democratic members of Congress, and most in the opposition Republican Party, claimed that Clinton's giving false testimony and allegedly influencing Lewinsky's testimony were crimes of obstruction of justice and perjury and thus impeachable offenses. The House of Representatives voted to issue Articles of Impeachment against him which was followed by a 21-day trial in the Senate.

All of the Democrats in the Senate voted for acquittal on both the perjury and the obstruction of justice charges. Ten Republicans voted for acquittal for perjury: John Chafee (Rhode Island), Susan Collins (Maine), Slade Gorton (Washington), Jim Jeffords (Vermont), Richard Shelby (Alabama), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania), Ted Stevens (Alaska), Fred Thompson (Tennessee), and John Warner (Virginia). Five Republicans voted for acquittal for obstruction of justice: Chafee, Collins, Jeffords, Snowe, and Specter.

President Clinton was thereby acquitted of all charges and remained in office. There were attempts to censure the president by the House of Representatives, but those attempts failed.

Aftermath

Clinton and Lewinsky on a 1998 Abkhazia stamp

Effect on 2000 presidential election

The scandal arguably affected the 2000 U.S. presidential election in two contradictory ways. Democratic Party candidate and sitting vice president Al Gore said that Clinton's scandal had been "a drag" that deflated the enthusiasm of their party's base, and had the effect of reducing Democratic votes. Clinton said that the scandal had made Gore's campaign too cautious, and that if Clinton had been allowed to campaign for Gore in Arkansas and New Hampshire, either state would have delivered Gore's needed electoral votes regardless of the effects of the Florida recount controversy.[30]

Political analysts have supported both views. Before and after the 2000 election, John Cochran of ABC News connected the Lewinsky scandal with a voter phenomenon he called "Clinton fatigue".[31] Polling showed that the scandal continued to affect Clinton's low personal approval ratings through the election,[32] and analysts such as Vanderbilt University's John G. Geer later concluded "Clinton fatigue or a kind of moral retrospective voting had a significant impact on Gore's chances".[33] Other analysts sided with Clinton's argument, and argued that Gore's refusal to have Clinton campaign with him damaged his appeal.[34][35][36][37]

Personal acceptance

Historian Taylor Branch implied that Clinton had requested changes to Branch's 2009 Clinton biography, The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, regarding Clinton's revelation that the Lewinsky affair began because "I cracked; I just cracked." Branch writes that Clinton had felt "beleaguered, unappreciated, and open to a liaison with Lewinsky" following "the Democrats' loss of Congress in the November 1994 elections, the death of his mother the previous January, and the ongoing Whitewater investigation".[38] Publicly, Clinton had previously blamed the affair on "a terrible moral error" and on anger at Republicans, stating, "if people have unresolved anger, it makes them do non-rational, destructive things."[39]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Posner, Richard A, (2009). "Introduction". An Affair of State The Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-00080-3. Retrieved March 1, 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Broder, John M.; Lewis, Neil A. (April 13, 1999). "Clinton is found to be in contempt on Jones lawsuit". The New York Times. p. 1. Retrieved March 5, 2012.
  3. 1 2 Jackson, Robert L. (July 30, 1999). "Clinton Fined $90,686 for Lying in Paula Jones Case". Los Angeles Times.
  4. 1 2 Gearan, Anne (1 October 2001). "Clinton Disbarred From Practice Before Supreme Court". The New York Times. Associated Press.
  5. ↑ "Tripp: I Am Not Intimidated". CBS. July 7, 1998. Retrieved January 26, 2010. In January, Tripp gave Starr the tapes. She made the recordings secretly at her home at the urging of her friend Lucianne Goldberg, a New York literary agent.
  6. ↑ Noah, Timothy (September 13, 1998). "Bill Clinton and the Meaning of "Is"". Slate. Retrieved July 15, 2009.
  7. ↑ President Bill Clinton, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 21 January 1998.
  8. ↑ Gitlin, Todd. "The Clinton-Lewinsky Obsession: How the press made a scandal of itself". The Washington Monthly. Retrieved June 11, 2009.
  9. ↑ Kalb, Marvin (September 2001). One Scandalous Story: Clinton, Lewinsky, and Thirteen Days That Tarnished American Journalism. Free Press. ISBN 0-684-85939-4.
  10. ↑ Layton, Lyndsey (July 27, 2004). "The Frenzy Over Lewinsky: As the Scandal Unfolded, a Media Storm Swirled in Washington". The Washington Post. p. B04. Retrieved June 11, 2009.
  11. ↑ Rich, Frank. "Journal; Monicagate Year Two", The New York Times, 16 December 1998.
  12. ↑ Rich, Frank. "Journal; Days of the Locust", The New York Times, February 25, 1998.
  13. ↑ Hennenberger, Melinda. "The President Under Fire", The New York Times, January 29, 1998.
  14. 1 2 James Barron with Hoban, Phoebe. "Dueling Soaps", The New York Times, January 28, 1998.
  15. ↑ "Lewinsky and the first lady". USA Today. Associated Press. March 19, 2008. Retrieved January 19, 2010.
  16. ↑ Jeff Leen (January 24, 1998). "Lewinsky: Two Coasts, Two Lives, Many Images", The Washington Post.
  17. ↑ Irvine, Reed; Kincaid, Cliff (August 21, 1998). "Bill Richardson Caught In Clinton Undertow". Accuracy in Media. Retrieved March 5, 2012.
  18. ↑ York, Byron (November 15, 1998). "The American Spectator : Slick Billy". American Spectator. Retrieved March 5, 2012.
  19. ↑ US News and World Report, "The Monica Lewinsky Tapes", 2 February 1998, v.124 n.4 p.23.
  20. ↑ Thomas, Evan; Isikoff, Michael (November 9, 1998). "The Goldberg-Tripp-Jones Axis". Newsweek. Archived from the original on June 25, 2009.
  21. ↑ Cloud, John; Barnes, Edward; Zoglin, Richard (February 2, 1998). "Lucianne Goldberg: in pursuit of Clinton". Time.
  22. ↑ "Newsweek Kills Story On White House Intern", DrudgeReportArchives, 1998.
  23. ↑ Schmidt, Susan; Peter Baker; Toni Locy (January 21, 1998). "Special Report: Clinton Accused". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 26, 2010.
  24. ↑ Top 5: Political Quotes That Defined Presidencies, APOLITICUS.COM Archived December 7, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
  25. ↑ Clinton, Bill. Response to the Lewinsky Allegations, Miller Center of Public Affairs, 26 January 1998.
  26. ↑ Blitzer, Wolf; Franken, Bob (July 28, 1998). "Lewinsky Strikes Far-Reaching Immunity Deal". CNN. Retrieved 9 March 2013.
  27. ↑ "Starr Report". The Washington Post. September 15, 1998. Retrieved 9 May 2013.
  28. ↑ Clinton, Bill. Address to the nation, PBS.org, 17 August 1998.
  29. ↑ Tiersma, Peter. "The Language of Perjury", languageandlaw.org, 20 November 2007.
  30. ↑ Montopoli, Brian (21 September 2009). "Bill Clinton on Lewinsky Affair: 'I Cracked'". Political Hotsheet. CBS News. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  31. ↑ Dover, Edwin D. (2002). Missed opportunity: Gore, incumbency and television in election 2000. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 130. ISBN 978-0-275-97638-5. John Cochran on ABC described this phenomenon as "Clinton fatigue." He said voters were happy with the policy agenda and direction of the country but were tired of Clinton and wanted to forget him. Casting their votes for Bush and not for Clinton's surrogate, Gore, was one way to bring about this preferred change, Cochran concluded.
  32. ↑ Denton, Robert E. Jr. (2002). The 2000 Presidential Campaign: A Communication Perspective. Volume 2000, Part 3. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 92, 98. ISBN 978-0-275-97107-6.
  33. ↑ Geer, John Gray (2004). Public opinion and polling around the world: a historical encyclopedia. 1. ABC-CLIO. p. 138. ISBN 978-1-57607-911-9.
  34. ↑ Marable, Manning (Summer 2001). "Gore's Defeat: Don't Blame Nader". Synthesis/Regeneration (25). Retrieved 9 May 2013.
  35. ↑ Weisberg, Jacob (8 November 2000). "Why Gore (Probably) Lost". Slate. Retrieved 9 May 2013.
  36. ↑ An anatomy of 2000 USA presidential election, NigerDeltaCongress.com
  37. ↑ Beyond the Recounts: Trends in the 2000 US Presidential Election, Cairn.info
  38. ↑ Page, Susan (21 September 2009). "Secret interviews add insight to Clinton presidency". USA Today. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  39. ↑ "Clinton: Lewinsky affair a 'terrible moral error'". CNN. 21 June 2004. Retrieved 9 May 2013.

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