Today in history – February 12, 1999

The impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton in the U.S. Senate ended. With the whole world watching via television, Senators stood up one by one during the final roll call to vote “guilty” or “not guilty.” On Article 1 (charging Clinton with perjury) 55 senators, including 10 Republicans and all 45 Democrats voted not guilty. On Article 2 (charging Clinton with obstruction of justice) the Senate split evenly, 50 for and 50 against the President. With the necessary two-thirds majority not having been achieved, President Clinton was thus acquitted on both charges and served out the remainder of his term of office lasting through January 20, 2001. (from The History Place)

I can only assume that the Senators who voted against impeachment thought that Clinton’s actions were not sufficient to remove him from office.

I have seen claims that Bill Clinton apologized for what he did, but Donald Trump did not. It is important to remember that Bill Clinton was guilty, and only apologized after he was caught, while Trump was not guilty of anything. Remember the blue dress? Before that, Clinton denied everything. He lied under oath, for which he was later punished, he DID have sexual relations with “that woman”, and he paid a large sum to Paula Jones to settle her sexual harassment lawsuit.

The facts (HISTORY.COM):

In November 1995, Clinton began an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a 21-year-old unpaid intern. Over the course of a year and a half, the president and Lewinsky had nearly a dozen sexual encounters in the White House. In April 1996, Lewinsky was transferred to the Pentagon. That summer, she first confided in Pentagon co-worker Linda Tripp about her sexual relationship with the president. In 1997, with the relationship over, Tripp began secretly to record conversations with Lewinsky, in which Lewinsky gave Tripp details about the affair.

In December, lawyers for Paula Jones, who was suing the president on sexual harassment charges, subpoenaed Lewinsky. In January 1998, allegedly under the recommendation of the president, Lewinsky filed an affidavit in which she denied ever having had a sexual relationship with him. Five days later, Tripp contacted the office of Kenneth Starr, the Whitewater independent counsel, to talk about Lewinsky and the tapes she made of their conversations. Tripp, wired by FBI agents working with Starr, met with Lewinsky again, and on January 16, Lewinsky was taken by FBI agents and U.S. attorneys to a hotel room where she was questioned and offered immunity if she cooperated with the prosecution. A few days later, the story broke, and Clinton publicly denied the allegations, saying, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.”

In late July, lawyers for Lewinsky and Starr worked out a full-immunity agreement covering both Lewinsky and her parents, all of whom Starr had threatened with prosecution. On August 6, Lewinsky appeared before the grand jury to begin her testimony, and on August 17 President Clinton testified. Contrary to his testimony in the Paula Jones sexual-harassment case, President Clinton acknowledged to prosecutors from the office of the independent counsel that he had had an extramarital affair with Ms. Lewinsky.

In four hours of closed-door testimony, conducted in the Map Room of the White House, Clinton spoke live via closed-circuit television to a grand jury in a nearby federal courthouse. He was the first sitting president ever to testify before a grand jury investigating his conduct. That evening, President Clinton also gave a four-minute televised address to the nation in which he admitted he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky. In the brief speech, which was wrought with legalisms, the word “sex” was never spoken, and the word “regret” was used only in reference to his admission that he misled the public and his family. [. . .]

Rejecting the first charge of perjury, 45 Democrats and 10 Republicans voted “not guilty,” and on the charge of obstruction of justice the Senate was split 50-50. After the trial concluded, President Clinton said he was “profoundly sorry” for the burden his behavior imposed on Congress and the American people.

A federal judge fined Bill Clinton over $90,000 for denying under oath that he had sex with Monica Lewinsky.

The fine was ordered by Judge Susan Webber Wright, three months after she found him guilty of contempt for giving false testimony in a sexual harassment case brought against him by a former Arkansas government employee, Paula Jones.

On his last day in office in 2001, Clinton agreed to a five-year suspension of his Arkansas law license in order to head off any criminal charges for lying under oath about his relationship with Lewinsky. He also paid a $25,000 fine over the Lewinsky incident.

Shortly after Clinton’s license was suspended in Arkansas, the U.S. Supreme Court suspended Clinton from presenting cases in front of the highest court (which he had never done) and gave him 40 days to contest his disbarment (which Clinton did not do). Instead, he resigned from the Supreme Court bar.

It was in 1994 that Paula Jones filed her sexual harassment lawsuit against Bill Clinton. It was finally settled in November 1998 with a check for $850,000.

 

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2 Responses to Today in history – February 12, 1999

  1. Pa Hermit says:

    What I found amazing is Hillary stayed married to that POS after all he did! If my spouse did anything remotely similar, I’d be long gone! Trust is everything. Speaks volumes of where her head is! Birds of a feather…

    Liked by 2 people

    • resolute says:

      Yours is a joyful marriage based on love and mutual respect. Theirs has always been a miserable one centered on political posturing, power, lies, and deceit.

      Liked by 1 person

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