Clinton Impeachment High Crimes and Misdemeanors or Political Witch Hunt? The issue: Should President Bill Clinton (D) be impeached for alleged crimes resulting from his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky? Or are his transgressions not serious enough to merit impeachment? Arguments in favor of impeachment: Clinton lied to a civil and a grand jury about the nature of his relations with Lewinsky and obstructed justice in attempting to cover up the affair; those charges represent serious moral, ethical and legal breaches. Clinton must be punished for violating the responsibilities of his office and lying to the American public. It would set a bad precedent if the president were allowed to get away with such crimes. Arguments against impeachment: Whether or not Clinton committed the alleged transgressions, they do not constitute grounds for impeachment; such drastic action should be reserved only for the most serious offenses. Furthermore, removing Clinton from office would undermine the will of the American electorate, which has twice selected Clinton to be president. The whole impeachment affair is merely a political witch hunt by Republicans who do not agree with Clinton’s policies. President Bill Clinton before television cameras in the White House Map Room moments before he addressed the nation about the Lewinsky affair. Introduction The Constitution provides for the removal of a president who has been found guilty of committing “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors” but impeachment is rare. In December 1998, for only the second time in the 209-year history of the presidency, a sitting president was impeached in the House. The House voted to impeach President Bill Clinton (D, 1993-2001) on charges stemming from an affair he had conducted with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Clinton was spared removal from office after the Senate voted to acquit him in February 1999. Impeachment is the process that the Constitution grants to Congress to remove a sitting president, vice president or other civilian federal officials (excluding members of Congress) for their misconduct. Impeachment inquiries begin in the House, which examines the evidence. A majority vote of the House is required to impeach the president, an action similar to indicting him for trial. Charges of impeachment are then sent to the Senate, which acts as a court to weigh the charges. A vote of two-thirds of the Senate is required to remove the president from office. The House had launched an impeachment investigation against Clinton in October 1998, after Congress received a 445-page referral from independent counsel Kenneth Starr. Starr had been investigating the president since 1994 for an unrelated matter. The referral, known as the Starr report, contained what Starr called “substantial and credible information” providing support for Clinton’s impeachment. Monica Lewinsky departs from the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. Lewinsky’s relationship with President Bill Clinton was the focus of the House prosecutor’s case in the impeachment of Clinton. The Starr report focused on charges relating to the president’s involvement with Lewinsky. In early 1998, evidence had emerged indicating that Clinton had tried to hide an affair with her. The report accused Clinton of perjury (lying under oath) before a grand jury and in a civil trial, obstruction of justice and abuse of power in his attempt to hide the affair. After the House Judiciary Committee completed its impeachment inquiry, it drew up four articles of impeachment related to those charges. The U.S. House voted on December 19, 1998, to impeach Clinton. In near party-line votes, the House approved two of the four articles of impeachment that had been drawn up by the Judiciary Committee. The House approved Article I, which accused him of lying under oath about the nature of his relationship with Lewinsky before a grand jury, and Article III, which accused Clinton of obstructing justice in order to cover up his sexual affair with Lewinsky. However, the House rejected Article II, which accused him of perjury in a civil lawsuit, and Article IV, which accused him of abusing his presidential power. The proceedings sparked intensely partisan debate. In this New York City health club, members intently watched the impeachment proceedings while exercising. Under constitutional procedures, the case was subsequently sent to the Senate for trial. The Senate on February 12, 1999, voted to acquit Clinton on both charges of impeachment. Clinton would have been the first American president to ever be removed from office. President Andrew Johnson (R, 1865-69) had been impeached in 1868 in a dispute with radical Republicans over the reconstruction of the South following the Civil War (1861-65), but had been spared removal by one vote in the Senate. The House Judiciary Committee had approved three articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon (R, 1969-74) in 1974 over the Watergate scandal, but Nixon resigned before a scheduled House vote on impeachment. One thing that all three impeachment proceedings had in common was intensely partisan debate. The debate over Clinton’s impeachment was particularly acrimonious. Republicans argued that Clinton had betrayed the nation’s trust, and they urged him to resign. Democrats just as vehemently defended Clinton. The vote accordingly followed party lines. On the most serious charge Clinton faced, that of lying to a grand jury, just five Democrats and five Republicans crossed party lines. Those who supported Clinton’s impeachment said that the actions with which he was charged represented serious moral, ethical and legal breaches. They argued that Clinton must be punished for breaking the law, violating the responsibilities of his office and lying to the American people. As the nation’s leader, the president must uphold the law and preserve the integrity of the government more so than any other person or official, they asserted. It would set a poor precedent, they added, if the president were allowed to go unpunished for crimes that would be penalized if they were committed by the average citizen. Opponents of impeachment, however, questioned the validity of the charges against Clinton. Even if the allegations were true, they said, such crimes would not warrant impeachment; his transgressions fell far short of the Constitution’s impeachment standard. They accused Clinton’s critics of conducting a “witch hunt” to uncover and exaggerate Clinton’s alleged misconduct. Moreover, they pointed out, Clinton’s job approval ratings remained high, and polls showed that most Americans did not want the president to be removed from office. Impeachment and Censure in U.S. History Allegations of misconduct involving presidents have long been a part of American politics. Even President George Washington (Federalist, 1789-97) , who was deeply revered during his first term, faced hostility from other politicians, the press and the public by the time he finished his second term. Washington’s critics called him a monarch-like tyrant and a hypocrite who abused his power as president. In some ways, Washington was lucky. He faced no real challengers for the presidency, and political parties, which later changed the nature of American politics, did not yet dominate the political landscape. (Washington did not belong to a political party when he was first elected; he would later join the new Federalist Party.) Organized parties began to influence elections and politics immediately after Washington’s tenure as president ended in 1797. The U.S. Senate convened for the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson in the aftermath of the Civil War. The growth of the two-party political system in the U.S. changed the tenor of politics, often by making political debate more bitter and by solidifying partisan alliances between members of Congress. At times, party members have mobilized to attack the credibility of presidents and have even considered the most drastic step—impeachment, or removing a president from office. In 1868, for the first time in U.S. history, the House voted to impeach a president, Johnson. In Johnson’s case, impeachment charges were brought by radical Republicans, who bitterly disagreed with his policies for rebuilding the country in the aftermath of the Civil War. When Johnson removed a member of his cabinet without the consent of the Senate, a move that had been made illegal by a now-defunct 1867 law, the action gave Johnson’s foes the opportunity they needed to bring impeachment charges. However, the Senate fell one vote shy of the two-thirds majority need to convict Johnson, and he remained in office. Watergate, the all-encompassing name for the most notorious political scandal ever to rock the U.S. presidency, occurred 100 years later. Watergate involved a series of crimes and ethical lapses by the Nixon administration. The first inkling that administration officials were involved came in June 1972, when members of Nixon’s reelection campaign were arrested for breaking into the Watergate building in Washington, D.C., where the Democratic Party headquarters were housed. An investigation into the crimes uncovered widespread graft and political abuses that were linked to many high-ranking members of Nixon’s administration, including the president himself. With his family standing behind him, President Richard Nixon read his resignation statement to the American public, in August 1974. Many Republicans joined congressional Democrats seeking to investigate the president’s role in the Watergate scandals. The House Judiciary Committee in July 1974 brought three articles of impeachment against Nixon—for obstructing the House panel’s investigation, abusing presidential powers and disobeying subpoenas. In August 1974, before a scheduled House vote on impeaching the president, Nixon resigned, the only president ever to do so. He never faced criminal charges because he was pardoned by his successor, President Gerald Ford (R, 1974-77), in September 1974. In addition, four presidents have been censured by Congress, according to the Congressional Research Service. Censure is a resolution passed by Congress that condemns the president for misconduct or abusing his power. The four presidents who were censured were Andrew Jackson (D, 1829-37), John Tyler (Whig, 1841-45), James Buchanan (D, 1857-61) and Nixon. The Start of the Clinton Investigation Clinton’s impeachment troubles stemmed from an unrelated investigation begun by Starr four years earlier. Starr was originally appointed by a panel of federal judges in August 1994 to investigate Clinton’s involvement in a series of financial and real-estate dealings known collectively as Whitewater. At issue was whether Clinton or his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, either knew about or committed illegal financial transactions during those dealings. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton arrives for an appearance before the grand jury hearing into the Whitewater investigation being led by Kenneth Starr. After Starr’s appointment, the inquiry into Clinton’s conduct widened to encompass numerous other allegations. Those allegations included charges that Clinton received illegal campaign contributions, that members of the administration attempted to cover up certain sensitive records and that associates of the Clintons attempted to influence testimony of key witnesses in the Whitewater case. In a November 19, 1998, statement to the House Judiciary Committee, Starr cleared Clinton of several key claims of wrongdoing. Starr said that there was no evidence that the Clintons had acted improperly in either the so-called Travelgate or Filegate affairs. Travelgate centered on accusations that the Clintons had improperly fired seven White House travel office employees in order to replace the staff with loyal friends. Filegate, meanwhile, involved allegations that White House officials had misused confidential files from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In addition, Starr testified that he had insufficient evidence to implicate the Clintons for any wrongdoing in their Whitewater dealings. Yet the 1998 impeachment charges against Clinton did not result from any of the investigations originally launched by the independent counsel. Instead, the charges against Clinton stemmed from his testimony in a civil lawsuit against him. That case, a sexual-harassment lawsuit filed by Paula Corbin Jones, a former Arkansas state employee, was settled in November 1998 for $850,000. Clinton did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement. Paula Jones (left) and her attorney, Susan Carpenter, walk to their plane for Little Rock, Arkansas, to testify in her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton. In the case, Jones alleged that Clinton had made inappropriate sexual advances to her in a Little Rock, Arkansas, hotel suite in 1991, when he was the state’s governor. The case was dismissed in April 1998 by Judge Susan Webber Wright of the U.S. District Court in Little Rock. As part of the November 1998 settlement of the case, Jones and her lawyers agreed to end their appeal of Wright’s ruling. During the case, Jones’s lawyers had sought to show that Clinton had engaged in a pattern of sexual misconduct with his workplace subordinates. Two women—Gennifer Flowers and Dolly Kyle Browning—said that they had engaged in long-term extramarital affairs with Clinton, and another woman, Kathleen Willey, testified that Clinton had made unwanted sexual advances to her while she was a White House volunteer. Another woman who testified was 24-year-old Lewinsky, who had served as a White House intern between June 1995 and April 1996. In their January 1998 sworn testimony for the Jones case, both Clinton and Lewinsky denied that they had been involved in a “sexual relationship” with each other. New Allegations The accuracy of those statements was called into question when Linda Tripp, a Defense Department employee and confidante of Lewinsky, contacted the office of the independent counsel. Tripp had secretly taped her telephone conversations with Lewinsky. In those conversations, Lewinsky said that she had engaged in intimate relations with Clinton and discussed filing a false affidavit in the Jones case. Linda Tripp, a Defense Department employee, secretly taped her telephone conversations with Monica Lewinsky. Starr then obtained permission to extend his investigation into the Lewinsky matter. In July, Starr granted Lewinsky immunity from prosecution for perjury in exchange for her testimony to the grand jury that was hearing evidence in the matter. In her grand jury testimony, Lewinsky described having sexual encounters with Clinton. She also claimed that they had discussed ways to keep the affair secret, but she said that Clinton had never told her directly to lie under oath; encouraging someone to lie under oath to a grand jury constitutes an obstruction of justice, a federal offense. On many occasions during the Jones suit, Clinton publicly denied that he had engaged in sexual relations with Lewinsky. After testifying to the grand jury on August 17, however, Clinton made a televised address to the nation in which he admitted that he and Lewinsky had had a relationship that was “not appropriate.” He told the American public that although his earlier statements were “legally accurate,” he had “misled” the public. In the wake of the speech, even many of Clinton’s longtime Democratic allies harshly criticized the president for his previous denials of the affair. Less than a month later, on September 9, Starr submitted to Congress the 445-page report alleging that his office had found “substantial and credible information…that may constitute grounds for impeachment” of Clinton. The Starr report contained graphic descriptions of 10 sexual encounters between Clinton and Lewinsky, based mostly on Lewinsky’s testimony to the grand jury. Vernon Jordan (left); Monica Lewinsky (right) In his report, Starr cited 11 acts that might constitute grounds for impeachment. Five of those charges involved perjury. Starr contended that Clinton had lied under oath in the Jones case and to the federal grand jury about his sexual relationship with Lewinsky; that he had lied when he claimed that he did not recall being alone with Lewinsky; and that he had lied about conversations he had had with both Lewinsky and his friend Vernon Jordan. Starr further claimed that Clinton had obstructed justice by concealing evidence of his relationship with Lewinsky and by enlisting Jordan to help her find a job in New York City. Starr also charged Clinton with attempting to influence the testimony of potential grand jury witnesses, including his secretary, Betty Currie. The last of the 11 counts claimed that Clinton had abused his power by lying to the public and Congress and by invoking executive privilege. Independent counsel Kenneth Starr testifies before the House Judiciary Committee. Calls for Clinton’s ouster had surfaced immediately after the Lewinsky matter was reported in the press and intensified after the Starr report was submitted to Congress. Many critics called upon the president to resign for the good of the country. Instead, Clinton apologized for misleading the public but firmly denied that he had committed any criminal wrongdoing. Clinton had said he would “never” consider resigning over the allegations against him. When it became clear that Clinton would not resign, the ball was set in motion for an impeachment inquiry. On October 8, the House voted, 258-176, to approve a full-scale, open-ended impeachment investigation of Clinton’s conduct. Wrangling over Terms Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution states that a president may be impeached and removed from office for “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” But just what may be considered a “high crime or misdemeanor” has been the subject of extensive debate. Before hearing any testimony about Clinton’s conduct, the House Judiciary Committee heard arguments from numerous scholars who disagreed about what type of conduct constituted an impeachable offense. President Bill Clinton addressed the nation on the nature of his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. In his response to accusations by the independent counsel, Kenneth Starr, president Clinton denied any action which could be grounds for impeachment. Some legal experts asserted that even if proved, the charges against Clinton could not be considered high crimes and misdemeanors because he did not misuse his office. “Lying about your sex life,” says historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., was “the last thing, surely, that the framers of the Constitution had in mind” when giving Congress the power to impeach the president. The White House, which issued a rebuttal to the Starr report in September 1998, asserted that high crimes and misdemeanors had a fixed meaning for the framers of the Constitution. “It meant wrongs committed against our system of government,” the rebuttal said. “The impeachment clause was designed to protect our country against a President who was using his official powers against the nation.” Other observers, however, said that the charges against Clinton fell easily within the definition of high crimes and misdemeanors. “If perjury and obstruction of justice do not undermine the integrity of the office, what offenses would?” asked Representative Charles Canady (R, Florida), a member of the House Judiciary Committee. Some legal experts said that the charges against Clinton were no trivial matter, and that considering them anything less than high crimes and misdemeanors would set a dangerous precedent for future officeholders. Determining that such felonious offenses were not grounds for impeachment, they contended, would give future presidents free rein to break the law. Clint