It all depends on the meaning of the word is

Via Sovereign Man

By February 1868, President Andrew Johnson had been at odds with Congress for years.

Johnson had been Vice President for barely a month when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1864, and his battles with Congress started from practically Day 1.

Johnson shared Lincoln’s view that the Confederacy should be swiftly and gently reintegrated back into the Union after the Civil War; neither wanted to penalize the South.

But at the time, Congress was filling up with politicians known as “Radical Republicans” who were anything BUT moderate.

They wanted to punish the South and mandate reunification with all sorts of strings attached– the opposite of what Andrew Johnson wanted to accomplish.

So Johnson vetoed nearly reunification bill that Congress passed.

Congress only had one key ally in the Executive Branch– Secretary of War Edward Stanton, a Radical Republican who did not see eye-to-eye with his President.

And just as Johnson was about to fire Stanton, Congress passed a bill called the Tenure of Office Act, which prohibited the President from firing ANY member of his cabinet.

The law was specifically designed to ensure that Stanton could not be fired– which is COMPLETELY unconstitutional.

Johnson vetoed the bill, but Congress had enough votes to override his Presidential veto… so the Tenure of Office Act still became law of the land.

Johnson ignored this unconstitutional law and fired Stanton anyhow. And within a matter of days he was brought up on 11 articles of impeachment. In addition to violating an unconstitutional law, Johnson was also accused of:

* Making speeches to the public which were “intemperate, inflammatory, and scandalous…against Congress amid the cries, jeers, and laughter of the multitudes…”

* bringing “the high office of the President of the United States into contempt, ridicule, and disgrace, to the great scandal of all good citizens…”

Mostly, Johnson was severely disliked by these Radical Republicans. He was a southern ex-slave owner… a potent combination that attracted seething hatred from his contemporaries. And his impeachment articles were just code for “We hate this racist asshole.”

Realistically, though, Johnson’s impeachment was just an attempted coup.

Congress had a policy agenda they wanted to pass, and Johnson kept getting in the way. So they came up with a bunch of silly charges, including the fact that he violated an unconstitutional law, in order to neutralize him.

Johnson was ultimately acquitted by the Senate and finished out the rest of his term. But it still set a precedent.

I know there are countless people losing their minds today because Congress just impeached the President of the United States on charges they find incredibly flimsy.

And there are plenty of talking heads saying that if a President can be impeached on such flimsy charges, that it ‘sets a very dangerous precedent.’

Well, technically this dangerous precedent was set more than 150 years ago; accusations against Andrew Johnson were appallingly flimsy, yet he was still impeached.

In the tenth charge of his Articles of Impeachment, for example, Congress cited a speech Andrew Johnson had given in 1866 in which he said,  “God willing, with your help I will veto [Congress’s] measures whenever any of them come to me…”

According to Congress, that simple statement was an impeachable offense… and set a precedent that they can impeach anyone for anything.

So if you think that today’s impeachment charges are too flimsy and set a dangerous precedent, this is really nothing new.

At the same time, there are also countless people losing their minds because they think ‘there’s a crime in progress’ and they want the President thrown out of office immediately.

Well, if you’re going to impeach someone and throw him out because he’s ‘abused his power,’ then you should apply the same standard to EVERYONE.

Politicians invariably abuse power for personal gain. Every time Barack Obama went to a campaign event for his own re-election in 2012, it cost taxpayers millions of dollars between the Secret Service, Air Force One, Presidential motorcade, etc.

Taxpayers foot the bill for his benefit. And every President in modern history has done the same.

These people pardon their friends, elevate campaign donors to important government posts, and lie constantly. They spend taxpayer resources and pass legislation for the sole purpose of elevating their approval ratings or solidifying their legacy.

Presidents do it. Cabinet secretaries do it. Senators and Members of Congress do it.

And it’s all abuse. Terrible, terrible abuse.

But if people are so juiced up to see one person punished for abuse of power, then why not have a real purge and throw everyone out? I would humbly nominate my 5-week old kitten to take over.

At the end of the day, though, we know this is just more bread and circuses. There’s no chance of anything real happening other than a giant waste of time and money.

Two decades ago they caught then President Bubba Clinton lying through his teeth when he said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman!” and “There’s nothing going on between us,” referring to White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

It was later found that, yes, in fact, Clinton used Lewinsky as a cigar holder. And when confronted about his lie, he had the most remarkable response in US political history:

“It depends on what the meaning of the word is is…”

Clinton was impeached and put on trial in front of the Senate.

But relying on the prevailing legal standard from the 1990s– “If it doesn’t fit you must acquit”, Clinton and his cigar were acquitted by 50% of the Senate, who were apparently also confused about the meaning of the word is.

Historian Will Durant often wrote that, despite the tremendous growth in knowledge over 5,000 years of human history, wisdom is little changed.

I couldn’t agree more. Enjoy the show.

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The Lewinsky scandal was a political sex scandal emerging from a sexual relationship between United States President Bill Clinton and a 22-year-old White House intern, 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.^{[citation needed]}

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 began a personal relationship with him later that year. As Lewinsky’s relationship with Clinton became more distant and she left the White House to work at The Pentagon, Lewinsky confided details of her feelings and Clinton’s behavior to her friend and Defense department co-worker Linda Tripp, who secretly recorded their telephone conversations.^[1] When Tripp discovered in January 1998 that Lewinsky had signed 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 the Whitewater scandal, Filegate, and Travelgate. During the grand jury testimony Clinton’s responses were guarded, and he argued, «It depends on what the meaning of the word is is».^[2]

The wide reporting of the scandal led to criticism of the press for over-coverage.^[3][4][5] The scandal is sometimes referred to as «Monicagate«,^[6] «Lewinskygate«,^[7] «Tailgate«,^[8] «Sexgate«,^[9] and «Zippergate«,^[9] following the «gate» nickname construction that became popular in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal.

Allegations of sexual contact

Lewinsky alleged nine sexual encounters with Bill Clinton:

• November 15, 1995, in the private study of the Oval Office
• November 17, 1995, while Bill Clinton was on the phone with a member of Congress
• December 31, 1995, in a White House study
• January 7, 1996, in the Oval Office
• January 21, 1996, in the hallway by the private study next to the Oval Office
• February 4, 1996, while Clinton was meeting in the Oval Office
• March 31, 1996, in the hallway near the study of the Oval Office
• February 28, 1997, near the Oval Office (this is when the blue dress stains were created)
• March 29, 1997 (Clinton, however denied that this day’s encounter actually happened)

According to her published schedule, First Lady Hillary Clinton was at the White House for at least some portion of five of these stated days.^[10]

In April 1996, Lewinsky’s superiors relocated her job to the Pentagon because they felt that she was spending too much time around Clinton.^[11]

According to his autobiography, then-United 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.^[12] The American Spectator provided evidence that Richardson knew more about the Lewinsky affair than he declared to the grand jury.^[13]

Lewinsky confided in a coworker named Linda Tripp about her relationship with Clinton. Tripp convinced Lewinsky to save the gifts that Clinton had given her, and not to dry clean what would later be infamously known as «the blue dress».^{[citation needed]} Tripp reported these conversations to literary agent Lucianne Goldberg, who advised her to record them,^[14] which Tripp began doing in September 1997. Goldberg also urged Tripp to take the tapes to Kenneth Starr and brought the tapes to the attention of people working on the Paula Jones case.^[15] In the fall of 1997, she began speaking to reporters (notably Michael Isikoff of Newsweek) about the tapes.^[16]

In January 1998, after Lewinsky had submitted an affidavit in the Paula Jones case denying any physical relationship with Clinton and attempted to persuade Tripp to lie under oath in the Jones case, Tripp gave the tapes to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. They added to his ongoing investigation into the Whitewater controversy. 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 website,^[17] 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.^[18] 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, which contained what would later become one of the best-known sound bites of his presidency:^[19]

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.^[20]

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 publicly stood by her husband throughout the scandal. On January 27, in an appearance on NBC’s Today she famously said, «The great story here for anybody willing to find it, 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. She also turned over a semen-stained blue dress (which Linda Tripp had encouraged her to save without dry cleaning) to the Starr investigators, thereby providing a smoking gun based on DNA evidence that could prove the relationship despite Clinton’s official denials.^[21]

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».^[22]

Perjury charges

In his deposition for the Jones lawsuit, Clinton denied having «sexual relations» with Lewinsky. Based on the evidence provided by Tripp, a blue dress with Clinton’s semen, Starr concluded that this sworn testimony was false and perjurious.

During the deposition, Clinton was asked «Have you ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, as that term is defined in Deposition Exhibit 1, as modified by the Court?» The judge ordered that Clinton be given an opportunity to review the agreed definition. Afterwards, based on the definition created by the Independent Counsel’s Office, Clinton answered «I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky.» Clinton later stated that he believed the agreed-upon definition of sexual relations excluded his receiving oral sex.^[23]

President Clinton was held in contempt of court by judge Susan D. Webber Wright.^[24] His license to practice law was suspended in Arkansas and later by the United States Supreme Court.^[25] He was also fined $90,000 for giving false testimony^[26] which was paid by a fund raised for his legal expenses.^{[citation needed]}

Impeachment

Most Republicans in Congress – who held the majority in both Houses at the time – and some Democrats believed that Clinton’s giving false testimony and alleged influencing Lewinsky’s testimony were crimes of obstruction of justice and perjury and thus impeachable offenses. The House of Representatives voted to issue Articles of Impeachment against him which was followed by a 21-day trial in the Senate. President Clinton was acquitted of all charges and remained in office. He was not given any penalty beyond attempts at censure by the House of Representatives.

Aftermath

2000 presidential election

The scandal arguably affected the 2000 U.S. Presidential election in two contradicting ways. Democratic Party candidate and sitting Vice President Al Gore claimed that Clinton’s scandal had been «a drag» that deflated the enthusiasm of their party’s base, effectively suppressing Democratic votes. Clinton claimed that the scandal had made Gore’s campaign too cautious, and that if Clinton had been allowed to campaign for Gore in Arkansas and New Hampshire, either state would have delivered Gore’s needed electoral votes regardless of what happened in Florida.^[27]

Collateral scandal

During the scandal, supporters of President Clinton claimed hypocrisy by at least some of those who advocated for his removal, alleging that the matter was private and «about sex». According to The Guardian,

Larry Flynt…the publisher of Hustler magazine, offered a $1m (£500,000) reward… Flynt was a sworn enemy of the Republican party [and] sought to dig up dirt on the Republican members of Congress who were leading the impeachment campaign against President Clinton.[…]Flynt claimed at the time to have the goods on up to a dozen prominent Republicans, the ad campaign helped to bring down only one. Robert Livingston — a congressman from Louisiana…abruptly retired after learning that Mr Flynt was about to reveal that he had also had an affair.^[28]

Congressman Livingston had been widely expected to become Speaker of the United States House of Representatives in the next Congressional session,^[29] then just weeks away.

Personal acceptance

Historian Taylor Branch implied that Clinton had requested changes to Branch’s 2009 Clinton biography, The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, regarding Clinton’s revelation that the Lewinsky affair began because «I cracked; I just cracked.» Branch writes that Clinton had felt «beleaguered, unappreciated and open to a liaison with Lewinsky» following «the Democrats’ loss of Congress in the November 1994 elections, the death of his mother the previous January, and the ongoing Whitewater investigation».^[30] Publicly, Clinton had previously blamed the affair on «a terrible moral error» and on anger at Republicans, stating, «if people have unresolved anger, it makes them do non-rational, destructive things».^[31]

References

External links

• Washington Post story from Jan. 21, 1998
• Transcript of Jim Lehrer interview with Bill Clinton on Jan. 21, 1998
• a BBC in-depth archived report from 1998
• Investigating The president: The Trial
• Famous Trials UMKC — Clinton Impeachment Discusses Lewinsky in detail.
• Clinton denying that he had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky

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