Past and Present: The Starr Report and Clinton Impeachment
The report was overly aggressive and proved a disaster for the GOP, but its effects linger
On Sept. 9, 1998, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr presented a long-awaited report concerning his investigation of President Bill Clinton to the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Two days later, on the afternoon of September 11—a decade ago today—the committee released the entire report on the Internet. Starr's presentation caused uproar and led directly to only the second impeachment trial of a U.S. president in the history of the nation, the first in 131 years.
The consequences of the Starr report included a tarnished legacy for President Clinton, an unexpectedly close presidential election in 2000, an early and ongoing discussion of impeaching Clinton's successor, and, most important, a widespread sense in the successor administration of George W. Bush that impeachment was a manageable threat rather than a serious restraint on presidential conduct.
Kenneth Starr had been rising in Republican legal ranks for two decades. A law clerk to Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, appointed a federal judge at age 37 by Ronald Reagan, solicitor general in the first Bush administration, Starr was chosen as independent counsel in 1994. He was selected by a conservative-leaning panel of three federal judges appointed by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Having no experience as a prosecutor, he was regarded as a highly partisan choice to take over an investigation of Bill and Hillary Clinton's prepresidential Arkansas financial dealings with the Whitewater Land Co. The inquiry proceeded slowly and without result for four years until sympathetic lawyers involved in an unrelated sexual harassment civil case against Clinton received a tip from Starr's staff to inquire about a presidential affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Clinton's deposition in the civil suit raised the possibility that the president could be charged with perjury. Starr and his staff pressured Lewinsky into admitting her relationship with Clinton and used what they learned to question him. In his August deposition and a subsequent address to a national television audience, Clinton admitted "inappropriate behavior" and called for an end to the political "pursuit of personal destruction." The appeal did not deter Starr from preparing a scathing report to the House Judiciary Committee.
More than 20 years earlier, lawyer John Doar was asked to present the case for impeaching President Richard Nixon to the same committee. He offered an evenhanded account of the arguments, pro and con. Only at the end of a six-week-long presentation and when pressed to do so by the chair of the committee did Doar reluctantly state that the evidence amounted to a compelling case for impeachment. Starr would not be so cautious.
The independent counsel's report delivered to the Judiciary Committee on Sept. 9, 1998, laid out a graphic account of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. Had it been published 40 years earlier, it would have met the Supreme Court's existing definition of pornography. Quoting Lewinsky's extended descriptions of each of her multiple sexual encounters with Clinton, the report laid out a case that the president had committed perjury in denying the affair. It did so in a manner calculated to maximize his embarrassment and encourage a Nixon-like resignation to avoid impeachment. Not content with documenting admissions by Lewinsky that she and Clinton had engaged in conduct that he had denied, Starr's report described in vivid detail every instance of kissing, fondling, oral sex, and telephone conversations about sex between the two. The phone sex descriptions in particular were questionable evidence of the alleged perjury but unquestionably an effective means of undermining the president's public image. Unlike Doar's restrained and understated report on Nixon, Starr's report aggressively argued for Clinton's impeachment in the most inflammatory style.
Republican House leaders insisted on immediate Internet release of Starr's report, ignoring Democratic appeals for delay in order to allow the White House time to prepare a response. Reprinting of the document in major newspapers followed quickly. Soon after, a paperback edition appeared on national bestseller lists. The vivid accounts of Clinton's intimacies with Lewinsky quickly became the topic of countless conversations and sermons, myriad late-night-television jokes, and innumerable parental worries about what their children were learning.
- 1
- 2
- Next Page >
Reader Comments
Shame on the continued coverup. KUDOS to Judge Starr.
Alot of innocent(?) people like Mr McDougal, Vincent Foster et al got killed. I never did see how to take thousands of dollarsloss with IRS on an $1K investment. I had hoped that Hillary would bare those records in her 2008 race but so far they remain hidden. Judge Starr deserves the highest honor that this country has give to a man that put Clinton cronnies behind bars. People like Mrs. McDougal spent time in jail rather that confess the truth. Mrs. Bill Ayres can tell you its no fun to be in jail to avoid testifying against a friend. Judge Starr did locate a great jurist, Susan Weber Wright, who deserves to be elevated to the U.S. Supreme Court as she never ducked the truth. It is shame that Judge Starr could not get enough evidence to send other Arkansas crooks away. The greater shame is Clinton never took responsibility for his sexual activity during working hours when he should have be having BinLaden extradicted for trial. The same Asst. U.S. AG was picked by the Democrats to sit on the 911 Commission to judge the failed Clinton failure to execute the warrant. Eight years of White House sex, pressure on banks to make bad loans, creation of socialized giveaways, appointing marginal Justices and Judges and allowing 911 to occur may reflect bad on Starr; but in reality every senator who voted No to impeachment aided and abetted the Clinton abuse of power.
[I was so caught up in responding to someone here that I forgot to address the article as much as I wanted to.]
This article is fine, and a good reminder (not a welcome reminder, but a good reminder). I have a couple of further points:
Why could Starr, who was asked to work on the Whitewater Land deal (which exonerated the Clintons in the end, after millions of dollars had been wasted), allowed to stay on when a completely unrelated 'tip' came up about Lewinsky? The ONLY connection between the two would have been: 'How to Get the Clintons'. How was this allowed? I remember that Reno had something to do with allowing it, and that maybe she didn't want to 'seem' partisan or something. Maybe she was a Puritan. Who knows? This is mostly rhetorical.
Why was Starr allowed to publish the proceedings, including secret testimony, of the Grand Jury? As I remember the Grand Jury proceedings were deemed (by what authority I don't know) to be secret. And Clinton, before he testified, as I remember, was told by Starr's minions that his testimony would remain secret. Yet Starr published all this in a thick paperback book, for all to read. Aside from his complete lack of integrity, his being run by a kind of vendetta here`, what about the law here?
To answer someone on this list, as much as I abhor Starr and his tactics, as a feminist I do, actually, feel glad that Lewinsky had the 'dress' as evidence, since Clinton was denying everything she said. Otherwise this might have resulted in a he said/she said and Lewinsky would be the one, as the women usually are, to be thrown to the wolves. Clinton was ready to deny her and to have her -- I don't know what -- somehow he could hurt her if she hadn't saved that dress. So, as much as she got herself into this whole-hog, she shouldn't have been blamed by herself, as if it were only one person involved. (And interns should never be used like this, even if they throw themselves at someone's feet, by someone in power.)
(I also abhor the tactics of the FBI who lied, lied, lied to a 23 year-old and intimidated her and her mother -- without a lawyer present -- into giving up everything she knew. They even incarcerated her, in her hotel room, as I remember, and wouldn't let her out, telling her that they already knew everything. -- She could have denied it and it would have stopped with she said/she said (her friend and snitch, Linda Tripp), if she had had a lawyer. Wouldn't it have? So Starr's power tactics had a considerable influence (as you say, even today) that it needn't have had if he had had any integrity.
Finally, more influence: the world now has in its collective mind, since that incident (the publishing of the embarassing testimony) the concept and image of 'oral sex', which it didn't before this. I suppose this might be a good thing for some who didn't know such an activity existed and have stepped into it since then with alacrity -- if the woman is interested and loves the man, that is.
To: Thrown of CA
To Thrown of CA:
Your email is the one which seems most racist to me. Pastor Wright didn't 'spew racism from the pulpit', he angrily chastised those who did practice racism and he angrily chastised people who went into Iraq with no reason but getting protecting their oil for themselves. He chastised racism and war. Now we have a man who is running for office who was influenced by his cronies, the same neocons, to pick a fundamentalist religious nut who was once a member of a party which wants to secede from the Union -- and her husband still is a member. We all know all the egregious and unethical things Palin is and has done and I won't enumerate them.
We all know that if the shoe were on the other foot, if Obama had been or was now a member of a secessionary party -- or his wife was -- he would have everything but the kitchen sink thrown at him and maybe would not be a candidate today. I don't agree with double standards depending upon what race you are. Not by you or by Congressman whatzisname in Georgia who, twice, called Obama 'uppity', a name which soundly states that someone has NO RIGHT to things and positions that people like him have. This is insanity. This is against the Constitution. This is against the Bible. This is against Common Sense. This completely shreds integrity.
McCain (your candidate, presumably) chose a partner who may well take over his job. She attends a church which insists that Jews will not get into heaven or be part of their 'rapture' or whatever they call it in that particular church. This is insane. If Obama had attended such a racist church we would have even more weeks of nonsense from MSNBC and CNN than we had over the relatively sane things ('get out of Iraq!') that we heard from Wright. That is racist. Palin's church is openly racist, not Wright's. Get over it.
From You: "The Presidents Office is so badly damaged that we are considering electing a President who had his first fund raiser for his Congressional seat at the home of an admitted Terrorist,William Ayers.Saying that William Ayers was "just a guy from his neighborhood".Next we learn that for 20 years Obama sat in a Church and listened to race hatred from the pulpit."
I don't know anything about Ayers. But it seems McCain is about to come out with ads which mention him and saying what you say. He is a mild-mannered professor in some local college. He has dealt with what he did decades ago. He is not a terrorist. Obama is not now his friend. The above is you being racist. Get over it, friend.
advertisement
