Clinton/nixon Impeachment

Impeachment is the ultiomate punishment for a president. It is a long and complicated rout to removing a public official from office. The Constitutional process Article II, section 4 specifies the procedures to be used to remove a public official from office(CNN/All Politics). The constitution states that and president found guilty for bribery, treason, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. There has been a long debate on what should be considered a high crime. Different people in the House share different views. Ultimately it is up to the Hose to decide to drop the charges or further the investigation. If the public official is found guilty a two thirds majority vote from the Senate is necessary. The most recent president to face an impeachment hearing was Bill Clinton. A previous case involving Richard Nixon, Watergate, was held in 1974. Rather than facing an embarrassment with impeachment Nixon chose to resign in disgrace.

Both cases were very much similar yet different. In the Watergate scandal many of Nixon's dirty tactics were learned, including assorted lists of enemies,a number of which became targets of IRS tax audits, wiretapping, political sabotage, burglary, blackballing, and smear campaigns(Geriouese). Similarly, as Clinton's case unfolded, the scandal appeared to involve more than just a sexual assault.

It was clear that the Republicans were out to get former President Clinton, when the Whitewater case emerged. Republicans were desperate to find Clinton guilty of covering up financial impropriety in his Arkansa invenvestments prior to becoming president. When speacial prosecutor Robert Fiske Jr. turned up no evidence, Republicans demanded his removal. Kenneth Starr was appointed the position. He began an open-ended inquiry into every corner of Clinton's life. Clinton was ultimetly found not guilty.

The first major set back of President Bill Clinton arose from a series of events following the filing of a lawsuit on May 6, 1994, by Paula Jones in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas(Starr). Ms. Jones alleged violations of her federal civil rights in 1991 by President Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas and she was an Arkansas state employee. According to the her allegations, Governor Clinton invited Ms. Jones to his hotel room where he made a sexual advance that she rejected.

Clinton's attorney's tried to get the caes to rest until his term as president was over. The Supreme Court decide against the recommendation and the court proceeded. Various witnesses were subpeanoed for information regaing the Jones vs. Clinton case. On April 1, 1998 Juge Suasan Wright made the final verdict. She stated that there was not enough evidence that supported any sexual harassment towards Ms. Jones. Ms. Jones appealed the case. Before the 8th circuit court of appeals had made any decisions a settlement was made outside the courts(Starr). Clinton agreed to pay Ms. Jones $1 million, but without an apology or admission of guilt(Starr).

Although the Jones vs. Clinton case the testimony in the suit brought up other Clinton affairs, and led directly to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Monica Lewinsky, who had worked in the White House in1995, was on a list of potential witnesses by Ms. Jones attorneys. During the hearing Mr. Clinton was asked if he had "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky. He had reportly denied the allegations(Hamilton).

Starr obtained tapes from Linda Tripp on January 12. In these tapes Lewinsky confided details of her feelings and the President's behavior to her presumed friend Linda Tripp. Tripp was illegally recording their telephone conversations with the intent to aid Republican persecution of the President without Monica's knowing(Starr). On the same day Monica's affidavit was sent by her lawyers to the Jones Lawyers in which she stated:

I have never had a sexual relationship with the President, he did not propose that we have a sexual relationship, he did not offer me employment or other benefits in exchange for a sexual relationship, he did not deny me employment or other benefits for rejecting a sexual relationship.

On January 15, Starr obtained approval from Attorney General Janet Reno, who in turn sought and received an order from the United States Court of Appeals, to expand the scope of the Whitewater probe into the new allegations. On the following day, a meeting between Ms. Lewinsky and Ms. Tripp at a hotel was secretly recorded pursuant to a court order, with federal agents then confronting Ms. Lewinsky at the end of the meeting with charges of her perjury and demanding that she cooperate in providing evidence against the President. Ms. Lewinsky initially declined to cooperate, and told the FBI and other investigators that much of what she had told Ms. Tripp was not true (Starr).

On January 17, President Clinton was deposed in the Jones lawsuit. He denied having "sexual relations" with Ms. Lewinsky under a definition provided to him in writing by her lawyers, and also said that he could not recall whether he was ever alone with her(Hamilton).

After repeated media inquiries, on January 26 President Clinton asserted in an appearance before the White House press corps: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," and denied urging her to lie about an affair.

The President's attorneys failed in efforts to block Starr's expansion of his investigation, which also included whether the President himself had lied under oath in his own deposition taken in the Paula Jones litigation. In July 1998, after being granted sweeping immunity from prosecution by Special Prosecutor Starr, Ms. Lewinsky admitted that she in fact had had a sexual relationship with the President that did not include intercourse, but denied that she had ever been asked to lie about the relationship by the President or by those close to him(New York Times).

On August 17, the President testified for over four hours before Starr's grand jury on closed-circuit television from the White House. In his testimony, he admitted the Lewinsky relationship, but denied that he perjured himself in the Paula Jones deposition because he did not interpret the conduct with Ms. Lewinsky as constituting sexual relations. On the same evening, he appeared on national television and admitted that he had an "inappropriate relationship" with Lewinsky and had misled the American people about it (Rozell).

On September 9, Independent Counsel Starr submitted a detailed report to the Congress in which he contended that there was "substantial and credible information that President Clinton committed acts that may constitute grounds for an impeachment" by lying under oath in the Jones litigation and obstructing justice