their complicity in crimes relating to Whitewater.
On June 30, 1994, however, Congress abolished
the position of special prosecutor by passing the In-
dependent Counsel Reauthorization Act of 1994.
The position of independent counsel was created by
the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. (The Ethics
in Government Act had expired in December, 1992,
but was reauthorized in June, 1994.) The purpose of
the act and its reauthorization was to avoid conflicts
of interest that would arise if the executive branch
were investigating its own officials. The act provided
for an independent counsel to investigate members
of the executive branch if warranted after a prelimi-
nary review by the attorney general. Under the act,
the attorney general must request the appointment
of counsel from a special division of the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Once appointed, counsel may be removed by the at-
torney general only for reasons specified in the act.
On August 9, 1994, eight months into Fiske’s in-
vestigation, the three-judge special division, chaired
by Republican judge David Sentelle, replaced Fiske
with Kenneth Starr, a former federal judge and Re-
publican solicitor general. The special division re-
moved Fiske on the grounds that he had been ap-
pointed by Clinton’s attorney general, thus creating
the appearance that he was not completely indepen-
dent. No reasons were offered by the panel to sup-
pose Fiske a confidante or lackey of either the attor-
ney general or Clinton. Equally important, no
evidence points to the conclusion that Clinton’s po-
litical opponents persuaded the panel to remove
Fiske or replace him with Starr.
Jones Lawsuit and Lewinsky Scandal Unrelated to
Whitewater, on May 6, 1994, Paula Jones, a former
Arkansas state employee, sued President Clinton in
federal court for sexual harassment. Jones claimed
that on May 8, 1991, then governor Clinton made an
improper sexual advance toward her in a Little Rock
hotel room. Jones was represented by the Ruther-
ford Institute, an organization with strong ties to the
Republican Party, and sought $700,000 in damages.
Clinton responded by filing a motion to dismiss
on grounds of presidential immunity—that is, be-
cause Clinton was a sitting president, he was im-
mune from a civil lawsuit. The district judge denied
Clinton’s motion and ruled that discovery could go
forward, but ordered any trial stayed until the end of
Clinton’s presidency. A divided panel of the court of
appeals affirmed the denial of the motion to dismiss
but reversed the order postponing the trial. In
Clinton v. Jones(1997), a unanimous Supreme Court
ruled against the president, holding that the doc-
trine of separation of powers did not require a federal
court to stay all private actions against the president
until he left office. As such, the lawsuit proceeded.
Prior to the president’s deposition in the sexual
harassment case, however, Linda Tripp, a former
White House employee, informed Jones’s lawyers
that the president was involved in an affair with a
White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. In early Janu-
ary, 1998, Lewinsky offered a sworn affidavit in the
Jones lawsuit, averring that she never had a sexual re-
lationship with the president. Shortly thereafter, on
January 12, Starr received secretly recorded audio
tapes of Tripp’s telephone conversations with
Lewinsky. These tapes revealed that Lewinsky was
willing to deny a sexual relationship with the presi-
dent in exchange for the president’s assistance in se-
curing her employment. Believing that the presi-
dent’s actions, if true, constituted obstruction of
justice, Starr requested and received approval from
the attorney general to investigate the Lewinsky mat-
ter. On January 17, Clinton, in a sworn deposition in
the Jones case, denied ever having “sexual relations”
with Lewinsky.
A federal grand jury, initially impaneled to inves-
tigate Whitewater, turned its attention to the Jones
and Lewinsky matters. Specifically, the grand jury
considered three accusations: whether Clinton had
committed perjury during his deposition in the
Jones case; whether Clinton had attempted to ob-
struct justice by encouraging Lewinsky and others to
lie about his sexual relationship with Lewinsky; and
whether Clinton had attempted to hide evidence of
his relationship with Lewinsky. On August 17, 1998,
the president testified before the grand jury via
closed-circuit television. That evening, Clinton ad-
dressed the nation, admitting that his relationship
with Lewinsky was inappropriate. He apologized for
misleading the public about that relationship but in-
sisted that he had never perjured himself. In addi-
tion, Clinton criticized both Jones and Starr for their
politically inspired motives.
By law, the independent counsel was required to
inform the House of Representatives of any credible
information that might constitute grounds for im-
peachment. The Starr Report, submitted to the
lower chamber on September 9, 1998, cited eleven194 Clinton’s impeachment The Nineties in America