President Bill Clinton is Impeached by the House: December 19, 1998
The Senate did not vote for removal from office.
Photo Credit: npr.org
Issue #202 American History December 20, 2022
On Monday, December 19, 2022, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol held its last public hearing. For the first time in American History, Congress referred to the Department of Justice four criminal charges against a president or former president. The referrals are only that, referrals, and they are not the same as an impeachment or a court filing. Only the Department of Justice can bring actual criminal charges.
Since at least 2015, we have heard about the scores of lawsuits and other legal troubles of former president Donald Trump. His long legacy of actions he took against the United States and other countries finally led to two impeachments in 2019 and 2021. Trump became the second elected president to be impeached, and the first president to be impeached twice.
President Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868. He was an unelected president because he ascended to the presidency after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
The House of Representatives voted on three articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon in 1974, but Nixon resigned before the impeachment could be finalized.
Finally, in 1998, when the House of Representatives filed Articles of Impeachment against President Bill Clinton, that was the first time that an elected president had been impeached.
Bill Clinton was first elected as the 42nd President of the United States in 1992, beating incumbent president George H.W. Bush. Clinton was easily re-elected in 1996.
Unlike Donald Trump, President Bush did not call for an insurrection or other ways to stay in power when he lost. Neither did incumbent President Jimmy Carter when he lost to Ronald Reagan in 1980. Both Bush and Carter gracefully accepted their losses and went on to do other things post-presidency.
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What are Articles of Impeachment?
Many people think that impeachment means that the president or other federal officers are being put out of office. That is not true.
The Articles of Impeachment, which are filed by the House and submitted to the Senate for trial and a vote for conviction and removal from office, are one or more charges against the federal officer, similar to an indictment in regular criminal court. Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution confers the powers of impeachment to the House of Representatives.
If the Senate Majority Leader accepts the Articles of Impeachment (which is not required), the Senate then holds a trial, usually presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), and then votes on convicting and removal from office. Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution gives the Senate the power of conviction and removal with a vote of 2/3 of the Senators present during the vote.
The Articles of Impeachment against Bill Clinton
After years of lawsuits, inquiries, and scandals, Bill Clinton was formally impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19, 1998, for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” There were two articles or charges that were approved by the House by a simple majority vote: 1) lying under oath, and 2) obstruction of justice. Two other articles were considered rejected.
The road to impeachment started with a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Clinton by Paula Jones in 1994. The lawsuit reached the Supreme Court in May 1997 and was finally settled by a federal appeals court in November 1998.
Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee hired an independent counsel, Ken Starr, to investigate accusations that Clinton had engaged in sexual relations with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. Clinton initially denied the allegations during a sworn deposition in January 1998.
But the independent counsel issued the Starr Report in September 1998, with details about the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. The report concluded that Clinton lied under oath about the affair and that he also tried to cover up the affair and coached her and his private secretary to lie or otherwise disavow the details of the affair.
For the November 1998 midterm elections, the then-House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, predicted a “red wave” where the Republicans would gain up to thirty House seats because of Clinton’s scandals. Instead, the Democrats picked up five seats, although the Republicans maintained a majority. Gingrich, who had been a leading advocate for impeachment, then announced he would step down from the speakership and resign from Congress, which he did on January 3, 1999.
Meanwhile, Gingrich’s replacement for speaker, Bob Livingston (R-LA), soon followed Gingrich in giving up his speakership-in-process and resigning from Congress when his own extramarital affairs were discovered.
It was revealed that three other Congressional Republicans who also voted for impeachment, including the House Manager in charge of the trial, also had extramarital affairs.
Bill Clinton is tried by the Senate
During the lame duck session of Congress, from December 20, 1998, to January 3, 1999, House and Senate leaders negotiated the terms of the pending trial. The Democrats tried to get Clinton censured instead of tried, but that initiative failed.
The new Congress began on January 3, 1999, and the new Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott (R-MS), announced on January 5 that the Senate trial would commence on January 7, 1999, with SCOTUS Chief Justice William Rehnquist presiding.
There were back-and-forth negotiations about calling live witnesses. Finally, only videotaped depositions were shown as testimony.
Unlike the two Senate impeachment trials for Donald Trump, the Senate hearings and deliberation meetings were not televised.
Final arguments were held on February 8:
The White House Counsel for President Clinton declared that lying about a sexual affair did not put the liberties of the American citizens at risk and that since the president had a 70% approval rating this meant that the American people believed he was still fit to lead the country.
The House Chief Prosecutor, Henry Hyde, stated that failing to convict because of a lie under oath about a sexual affair would make presidential lying just “a breach of etiquette” instead of the moral failing that it was.
The Hypocrisy of Henry Hyde
Henry Hyde was a strong anti-abortionist who was the chief sponsor of the “Hyde Amendment” which forbade using federal funds to pay for elective abortion via Medicaid. The final bill allowed payment for abortions in the cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.
Henry Hyde was also on the board of directors of Clyde Federal Savings and Loan, using his position to promote the risky financial dealings of the institution. He was sued, but the government settled the lawsuit and exempted Hyde from financial penalties. At the time, Hyde was the only sitting member of Congress to be sued for “gross negligence.”
Henry Hyde was also involved in the Iran-Contra affair, defending President Ronald Reagan and others by saying that lying to Congress was excusable if the persons were fighting communism.
While Hyde was in charge of the impeachment hearings against Bill Clinton, it was revealed that he himself had an affair with a married woman. Hyde dismissed his affair as a “youthful indiscretion” even though he was 41 years old and also married when the affair occurred.
The Senate Acquits President Clinton
On February 9, 1999, the Senate began closed-door deliberations instead (similar to a jury deliberating on a verdict).
On February 12, 1999, the Senate voted on the articles of impeachment. Sixty-seven votes, or 2/3 of the 100-member Senate, were required to convict on one or both charges and remove the president from office.
The perjury charge was defeated with 45 votes for conviction and 55 against, and the obstruction of justice charge was defeated with 50 for conviction and 50 against. All 45 Democrats in the Senate voted "not guilty" on both charges, as did five Republicans; they were joined by five additional Republicans in voting "not guilty" on the perjury charge.
In April 1999, Clinton was cited by federal District Court Judge Susan Webber Wright for civil contempt of court for lying during the Paula Jones lawsuit. He was fined $90,000.
On January 19, 2001, one day before George W. Bush was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States, Clinton agreed to a five-year suspension of his Arkansas law license and to pay a $25,000 fine as part of an agreement with independent counsel Robert Ray to end the investigation without the filing of any criminal charges for perjury or obstruction of justice. Clinton also subsequently resigned from the Supreme Court bar.
Former President Bill Clinton established the Clinton Foundation to expand opportunities worldwide, and in 2021, he founded the Clinton Global Initiative to spur economic development in underserved communities.
Ken Starr Retracts some of his allegations against Clinton
In January 2020, while testifying as a defense lawyer for U.S. President Donald Trump during his first Senate impeachment trial, Ken Starr retracted some of the allegations he made to justify Clinton's impeachment. While he was urging the Senate not to remove Trump as president, Starr contradicted various arguments he used in 1998 to justify Clinton's impeachment. Starr condemned the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump as dangerous and unconstitutional.
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