Lewinsky scandal

The Lewinsky scandal was a political sex scandal emerging in 1998, from a sexual
relationship between 49-year-old United States president Bill Clinton and a 22-yearoldWhite House employee, Monica Lewinsky. The news of this extra-marital affair and the
resulting investigation eventually led to the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998 by
the U.S. House of Representatives and his subsequent acquittal on all impeachment
charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in a 21-day Senate trial.[1]
In 1995, Monica Lewinsky, a graduate of Lewis & Clark College, was hired to work as an
intern at the White House during Clinton's first term, and was later an employee of the White
House Office of Legislative Affairs. While working at the White House she began a personal
relationship with Clinton, the details of which she later confided to her friend and Defense
Department co-worker Linda Tripp, who secretly recorded their telephone conversations. [2]
When Tripp discovered in January 1998 that Lewinsky had sworn an affidavit in the Paula
Jones case denying a relationship with Clinton, she delivered the tapes to Kenneth Starr,
the Independent Counsel who was investigating Clinton on other matters, including
theWhitewater scandal, the White House FBI files controversy, and the White House travel
office controversy. During the grand jury testimony Clinton's responses were carefully
worded, and he argued, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is", [3] in regards to
the truthfulness of his statement that "there is not a sexual relationship, an improper sexual
relationship or any other kind of improper relationship." [4]
The wide reporting of the scandal led to criticism of the press for over-coverage. [5][6][7]The
scandal is sometimes referred to as "Monicagate",[8] Lewinskygate",[9]"Tailgate",
[10]
"Sexgate",[11] and "Zippergate",[11] following the "-gate" nicknameconstruction that has
been popular since the Watergate scandal.

Allegations of sexual contact[edit]

Lewinsky claimed to have had sexual encounters with Bill Clinton on nine occasions from
November 1995 to March 1997. According to her published schedule, First Lady Hillary
Clinton was at the White House for at least some portion of seven of those days. [12]
In April 1996, Lewinsky's superiors relocated her job to the Pentagon, because they felt that
she was spending too much time around Clinton. [13] According to his autobiography, thenUnited Nations Ambassador Bill Richardson was asked by the White House in 1997 to
interview Lewinsky for a job on his staff at the UN. Richardson did so, and offered her a
position, which she declined.[14] The American Spectator alleged that Richardson knew more
about the Lewinsky affair than he declared to the grand jury.[15]
Lewinsky confided in a coworker named Linda Tripp about her relationship with Clinton.
Tripp persuaded Lewinsky to save the gifts that Clinton had given her, and not to dry clean
a semen-stained blue dress. Tripp reported these conversations to literary agent Lucianne
Goldberg, who advised her to secretly record them, [16] which Tripp began doing in

September 1997. Goldberg also urged Tripp to take the tapes to Independent
Counsel Kenneth Starr and bring them to the attention of people working on the Paula
Jones case.[17] In the fall of 1997, Goldberg began speaking to reporters (notably Michael
Isikoff of Newsweek) about the tapes.[18]
In January 1998, after Lewinsky had submitted an affidavit in the Paula Jones case denying
any physical relationship with Clinton, she attempted to persuade Tripp to lie under oath in
the Jones case. Instead, Tripp gave the tapes to Starr who was investigating the Whitewater
controversy and other matters. Now armed with evidence of Lewinsky's admission of a
physical relationship with Clinton, he broadened the investigation to include Lewinsky and
her possible perjury in the Jones case.
Denial and subsequent admission

News of the scandal first broke on January 17, 1998, on the Drudge Report,[19] 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.[20] 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 forceful denial in which he said: [21]
Now, I have to go back to work on my State of the Union speech. And I worked on it until
pretty late last night. But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen
to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss
Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false.
And I need to go back to work for the American people. Thank you. [22]
Pundits debated whether or not Clinton would address the allegations in his State of the
Union Address. Ultimately, he chose not to mention them. Hillary Clinton stood by her
husband throughout the scandal. On January 27, in an appearance on NBC's Today she
said, "The great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is
this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day
he announced for president."
For the next several months and through the summer, the media debated whether or not an
affair had occurred and whether or not Clinton had lied or obstructed justice, but nothing
could be definitively established beyond the taped recordings because Lewinsky was
unwilling to discuss the affair or testify about it. On July 28, 1998, a substantial delay after
the public break of the scandal, Lewinsky received transactional immunity in exchange
for grand jury testimony concerning her relationship with Clinton. [23] She also turned over
a semen-stained blue dress (that Linda Tripp had encouraged her to save without dry
cleaning) to the Starr investigators, thereby providing unambiguous DNA evidence that
could prove the relationship despite Clinton's official denials. [24]

Clinton admitted in taped grand jury testimony on August 17, 1998, that he had had an
"improper physical relationship" with Lewinsky. That evening he gave a nationally televised
statement admitting his relationship with Lewinsky which was "not appropriate". [25]