Eluding Impeachment

It was Saturday, December 19th 1998. The House of Represenatives voted 228 to 206 to approve proposed Article One of Impeachment (Perjury before a Federal Grand Jury), and voted 221 to 212 to approve proposed Article Three of Impeachment (Obstruction of Justice) against William Jefferson Clinton.

After all this had taken place,Mr. Clinton was not thrown out of office. Instead,he served his last scheduled two years as the leader of our country. So here I ask, was he impeached or wasn't he?

The fact of the matter is that the Senate never touched the issue and never took action on it. Was it the fact that he was responsible for an outstanding economy? Was it because he was great in all other aspects beside his personal life that made them decide to leave the situation alone? We don't know,but I can explain some of the issues on what happened.

Bill Clinton was one of the most successful presidents when it came to the issues of the American people. The unemployment rate was the lowest we had seen in 3 decades. He was responsible for the highest homeowner rate in the nation's history. Welfare was reduced, as well as the crime rate in many places.

As far as the peace at home he did pretty well. He bombed Iraq after Saddam Hussein stopped the United Nation's inspections for weapons of mass distruction. He sent peace keeping forces to Bosnia, which was a country in turmoil at the time. He opened up more international trade while cracking down against drug trafficking worldwide. All in all he was pretty successful at his job.

With 1995 come the events that almost cost him his job. In June of that year, Monica Lewinski joins the White House as an unpaid intern in the office of the Chief of Staff Leon Panetta. The Clinton/Lewinski relationship didn't surface until November of 1995,according to Linda Tripp's secretly recorded audio tapes.

1995 then turns over to 1996,as the situation starts to snowball a little. in April of 1996, Ms. Lewinski was transfered to a job as an assistant to the Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon, due to "inappropriate and immature behavior", on accounts of the report to The New York Times by Deputy White House Chief of staff Evelyn Lieberman. It all begins to unravel later that summer as Lewinski begins to tell her Pentagon co-worker Linda Tripp about her relationship with the president.

The situation does not get any better in 1997,as another incident occurs. In the late summer, Tripp comes upon Kathleen Willey coming out of the Oval office with a disarranged appearance. According to the Tripp article later printed said that Willey's face was red and her lipstick was off. Willey later claimed that Clinton had groped her. Tripp then begins to tape conversations with Lewinski in the fall of that year,then meets with some of Newsweek's reporters at one of their apartments and plays the taped conversations for them. That December,Monica Lewinski leaves the Pentagon,and is supoenaed by lawyers for Paula Jones, who was suing Mr. Clinton for sexual harassment. On Ms. Lewinski's last day at the White House in late December, she reportedly met in private with the president, alledgedly being encouraged to be "evasive" in the answers she gives in the Jones lawsuit.

The trial picks up in 1998. On January 7th, Ms. Lewinski filed an affidavit in the Jones case,denying that she had a sexual relationship with Mr. Clinton. 2 days later Ms. Tripp delivers the recorded conversations to her lawyer, Jim Moody. After 13 days of deliberations between Tripp and Attorney General Janet Reno deciding to expand his probe and to investigate the matter of purjury in the Jones case by the permission of 3 federal judges,the scandal goes public. The next day, Clinton reiterates his denial of the relationship and told America he never urged Lewinski to lie about the case. After 8 months of testimony, the House Judiciary Commitee voted twenty-one to sixteen in favor for a full impeachment inquiry. On October 8th,the House voted 258-176 to authorize a wide-ranging impeachment inquiry of President Clinton. On November 13th, Clinton ended the four year long lawsuit by agreeing to pay $850,000 to drop the case. The deal, however, did not include an apology. After the deliberation from both sides in the case, The House of Juciary Committe approves 4 articles of Impeachment. On December 16th, UK and American forces bomb Iraq in retaliation of their failiure to cooperate with the UN inspections. Due to that, House Republican Leaders delay the impeachment and vote which was set to begin on that day. Some say the bombings in Iraq were to distract all the media attention from the impeachment proceedings. On December 19th, The House of Represenatives approve Aricle One and Article Three of Impeachment, charging Mr. Clinton with lying under oath to a Federal Grand Jury and obstructing justice.

This brings us to 1999,after the impeachment trial begins. On February 12th,President Clinton was aquitted of those two articles of impeachment. On the charge of Article One, 10 Republicans and 45 Democrats voted "not guilty." On the charge of Article Three,the senate was split 50/50. Clinton apologized to Congress and the American people afterward.

Now we are here in the year 2004. It's been over 4 years since the whole scandal wrapped up. I don't believe that Mr. Clinton should have been impeached,because after looking at Article Four of Impeachment, I realized that number four (Abuse of Power) was the only Article that really mattered. Clinton had issues with his own personal life, but when it came down to it he did the job he was supposed to do. The wrong that he did was not in the area that was important. He kept America safe. He made sure that this economy was as stable as it has ever been. He did everything that a president is supposed to do in his 4 (or 8) years in office.

So the answer to that question, yes he did get impeached, but the Senate found him innocent. It doesn't matter if you are Democrat or Republican, you don't fire your best worker for the situations he has with his personal life unless it affects his job. This did not affect how he ran our counrty, and I believe that the Senate made the right choice.

D.C.W.