Bill Clinton Impeachment – The Affair

William Jefferson Clinton is an politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001.

Lewinsky stated that she had sexual encounters with Bill Clinton on nine occasions from November 1995 to March 1997.

News of the scandal first broke on January 17, 1998, on the Drudge Report, 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. 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 denial.

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”.

Bill Clinton Impeachment 

After the 1998 midterm elections, the House started Bill Clinton Impeachment, alleging perjury and obstruction of justice related to the Lewinsky scandal.

Impeachment proceedings were based on allegations that Clinton had illegally lied. He covered up his relationship with 22-year-old White House (and later Department of Defense) employee Monica Lewinsky.

Later, these charges stemmed from a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Clinton by Paula Jones. Later court acquainted Clinton of these Senate charges on February 12, 1999.

Chief Prosecutor David Schippers and his team reviewed the material and determined there was sufficient evidence to impeach the president.

As a result, full House of Representatives considered four charges. House of Representatives passed two charges, making Clinton the second president to be impeached.

After Andrew Johnson in 1868, and only the third against whom articles of impeachment before the full House for consideration. Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency in 1974, while an impeachment process against him was underway.

The trial in the United States Senate began right after the seating of the 106th Congress, in which the Republican Party held 55 Senate seats.

A two-thirds vote (67 senators) was required to remove Clinton from office. While the House Judiciary Committee hearings ended in a straight party-line vote, there was lively debate on the House floor.

Fifty senators voted to remove Clinton on the obstruction of justice charge and 45 voted to remove him on the perjury charge; no member of his own Democratic Party voted guilty on either charge. Later Senate acquitted Clinton, like Johnson a century earlier, of all charges.