See also Academy Awards; Clinton, Bill; Film in
the United States; Independent films;Pulp Fiction;
Tarantino, Quentin.
Troopergate
Identification An investigation and scandal based
on allegations, ultimately proved false, that Bill
Clinton, while governor of Arkansas, asked
Arkansas state troopers to arrange sexual
liaisons for him
This scandalous attack on U.S. president Bill Clinton had
wide repercussions for the Clinton presidency and U.S. poli-
tics throughout the 1990’s.
“Troopergate” is a media-generated term for a set of
allegations made by two former Arkansas state
troopers, Larry Patterson and Roger Perry, that Bill
Clinton had asked them to arrange sexual liaisons
for him while he was Arkansas’s governor and that
they had complied. David Brock reported these alle-
gations in the conservative journalAmerican Spectator
in 1993.
Included in Brock’s account was the name of a
woman, Paula, who was the subject of one alleged in-
cident. Subsequently, this woman was identified as
Paula Jones, who brought a sexual harassment law-
suit against President Clinton. Clinton claimed that
such a suit could not be brought against him during
his tenure as president. On appeal, the U.S. Su-
preme Court ruled in 1997 that Jones could pursue
her case against Clinton while he was still in office.
During subsequent depositions, Clinton denied sex-
ually harassing Jones and also denied having sexual
relations (within the meaning of a controversial and
arguably ambiguous definition) with former White
house intern Monica Lewinsky.
Federal judge Susan Webber Wright ruled that
the Paula Jones lawsuit should be summarily dis-
missed on the grounds that Jones could not show
that she had suffered any damages as the result of
the alleged harassment. Jones threatened to appeal,
but Clinton settled with Jones in November, 1998,
for $850,000 in exchange for her not pursuing her
appeal. Clinton refused to give a public apology.
However, Kenneth Starr, who had been pursuing
a separate investigation into allegations of financial
improprieties in a real estate deal known as White-
water, convinced Attorney General Janet Reno that
the Paula Jones lawsuit and the Monica Lewinsky al-
legations were relevant to his Whitewater investiga-
tion. Based on this additional authorization, Starr
pursued perjury and obstruction of justice charges
against Clinton for falsely denying that he had had
sexual relations with Lewinsky, which ultimately re-
sulted in Clinton’s impeachment by Republicans,
who had a majority in the House of Representatives
and passed impeachment charges along essentially a
party-line vote. However, in the subsequent trial in
the Senate, Clinton was not convicted even by a ma-
jority of the senators (conviction required a two-
thirds majority), and he was not removed from of-
fice.
The allegations by Patterson and Perry contrib-
uted to a lengthy investigation with far-reaching con-
sequences. Initially, the belief was that these two for-
mer state troopers had related their story entirely
because of their interest in good government. Later,
a conservative activist reported that he had paid
Patterson and Perry $6,700 apiece for their stories
after they were published. Part of this money was al-
leged to have come out of $200,000 that conserva-
tive evangelical religious leader Jerry Falwell had
paid to a group called Citizens for Honest Govern-
ment. While these payments were made without Da-
vid Brock’s knowledge, Brock subsequently publicly
apologized to the Clintons for his role in publishing
the initial Troopergate story, which he admitted was
based on an “anti-Clinton crusade” rather than an
effort at serious journalism.
Impact These politically motivated allegations
consumed a great deal of media attention and White
House effort before they were determined to be
false. They were often confused with other allega-
tions made before and after Clinton’s impeachment
trial.
Further Reading
Brock, David.Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an
Ex-Conservative. New York: Crown, 2002. Brock, a
reporter for theAmerican Spectator, triggered the
events that led to Clinton’s impeachment trial.
Brock was a crucial actor in the “Arkansas proj-
ect” that attempted to find any allegation, true or
not, with which to smear the Clintons, until he be-
came convinced that the cause he was espousing
was essentially based on lies.
Clinton, Bill.My Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,- Clinton’s skill as a communicator comes
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