possible impeachable offenses, including lying un-
der oath, obstructing justice, tampering with a
witness, and abusing constitutional authority. Inter-
estingly, not one of the offenses pertained to White-
water.
House Impeachment and Senate Trial In the 105th
Congress, the House of Representatives was di-
vided—228 Republicans and 206 Democrats, with
one independent. The Senate had fifty-five Republi-
cans and forty-five Democrats. Fearing impeachment
proceedings, the president’s supporters asserted
three positions. First, the framers of the Constitu-
tion had not intended for impeachment inquiries to
be employed so wantonly. Impeachment was de-
signed for crimes of substantive magnitude, like
treason and bribery. Second, impeachment was an
appropriate remedy only for public, but not private,
wrongs. Third, impeachment required a very high
standard because the United States had a presiden-
tial and not a parliamentary system, and because it
nullified the popular will. The president’s oppo-
nents invoked the rule of law: Lying under oath is an
impeachable offense. An extramarital affair may
not be an impeachable offense, but perjury, obstruc-
tion, and abuse of power are.
On October 8, 1998, the House voted 258 to 176
to conduct an impeachment inquiry. Every Republi-
can voted for the inquiry, and 86 percent of the
Democrats opposed it. Leading up to the 1998 mid-
term elections, Republicans attempted to focus pub-
lic debate on the Lewinsky scandal. That effort was
largely unsuccessful: The Democrats picked up five
seats in the House and maintained their seats in the
Senate.
Even so, the Republicans pressed forward. After
weeks of partisan debate, the House Judiciary Com-
mittee approved four articles of impeachment
against the president. On each, the committee vote
was strictly along party lines. Article I accused the
president of committing perjury before the grand
jury. Article II charged Clinton with perjuring him-
self in the Jones deposition. Article III charged the
president with obstructing justice. Article IV ac-
cused Clinton with perjuring himself in his re-
sponses to the House Judiciary Committee’s ques-
tions. On December 19, 1998, the full House
adopted Articles I and III. (Only a majority vote is re-
quired to impeach officers of the United States.) Ar-
ticle I passed 228-206 on virtually a straight party-line
vote, with five Democrats in favor and five Republi-
cans opposed. Article III passed narrowly 221-212,
again largely along party lines. Article II failed 229-
205, with twenty-eight Republicans voting against it.
Article IV was defeated decisively 285-148. Clinton
became the second president, and the first elected
one, to be impeached.
On January 7, 1999, the Senate trial began. Each
side was allotted twenty-four hours to make its case,
followed by questions from the senators. The House,
acting as the prosecution, presented first. On Febru-
ary 12, the Senate voted on the two articles of im-
peachment; both failed. (A two-thirds vote is re-
quired to convict and remove officers of the United
States.) On the perjury article, ten Republicans
joined forty-five Democrats voting not guilty. On the
obstruction article, the Senate was equally divided:
five Republicans joined forty-five Democrats voting
not guilty.Impact From a Democratic perspective, both the
conservative independent counsel and the Republi-
can-controlled Congress took a cavalier approach to
the impeachment process by attempting to criminal-
ize political differences. Had the Republican Party
been successful in removing President Clinton from
office for sexual misadventures, so the argument
went, there would have been a massive separation-of-
powers shift toward congressional aggrandizement
and terrible damage to the institution of the presi-
dency. The Republican effort subordinated the
constitutional objective of addressing impeachable
wrongs to political partisanship. It signaled the Re-
publican Party’s desire to destroy Clinton personally
and politically at any price.
From a Republican perspective, impeachment,
conviction, and removal was the only remedy for a
reckless and lawless president. Providing false and
misleading testimony in a sworn deposition and be-
fore a duly impaneled grand jury, endeavoring to
obstruct justice by encouraging false affidavits and
taking affirmative steps to conceal a felony, and tam-
pering with witnesses were all serious offenses. The
president’s conduct brought more than disgrace to
himself and to the institution of the presidency; the
president’s conduct constituted a crisis of public or-
der—a crisis that could be remedied only through
constitutionally and historically justified impeach-
ment, conviction, and removal from office.
The impeachment proceedings against PresidentThe Nineties in America Clinton’s impeachment 195