Overview

On December 19, 1998, President Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives on two charges, one of perjury and one of obstruction of justice, arising from the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the Paula Jones lawsuit. Two other impeachment articles, a second perjury charge, and a charge of abuse of power failed in the House.

Clinton was acquitted by the Senate on February 12, 1999. With a two-thirds majority required for conviction (i.e., 67 out of 100 senators), only 45 senators voted guilty on the perjury charge and 50 on the obstruction charge. Clinton was, thus, 17 votes shy of being removed from office on the latter charge. The voting in the House and Senate was largely partisan: in the House, only five Democratic Representatives voted to impeach, while in the Senate, which had 55 Republican Senators, none of the Democratic Senators voted for conviction. It was only the second impeachment of a President in American history, the other being that of Andrew Johnson, who was also acquitted by the Senate (by the margin of a single vote).

The Independent Counsel Investigation

The charges arose from an investigation by Independent Counsel Ken Starr. Originally dealing with the Clintons' possible improper involvement in a failed real estate venture associated with the Whitewater Development Corporation in Arkansas in the 1970s and 1980s, Starr—with the approval of United States Attorney General Janet Reno—conducted a wide ranging investigation of alleged abuses. While Starr was never able to prove any wrongdoing, he soon turned up other allegations, and his investigative authority was expanded. In May 1994, Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee, filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Bill Clinton, and Starr’s office began to investigate this case. When a federal court dismissed Jones’s suit in 1998, her lawyers promptly appealed the decision and submitted a list of other alleged victims of Clinton’s harassment. That list included the name of Monica Lewinsky, a young White House intern. 

Both Lewinsky and Clinton denied under oath that they had had a sexual relationship. The evidence, however, indicated otherwise, and Starr began to investigate the possibility that Clinton had committed perjury. Again, Clinton denied any relationship and even went on national television to assure the American people that he had never had sexual relations with Lewinsky. However, after receiving a promise of immunity, Lewinsky turned over to Starr evidence of her affair with Clinton, and the president admitted he had indeed had inappropriate relations with her. He nevertheless denied that he had lied under oath. At the deposition, the judge ordered a precise legal definition of the term "sexual relations" that Clinton claims to have construed to mean only vaginal intercourse. He also contended that his statement that "there's nothing going on between us" had been truthful because he had no ongoing relationship with Lewinsky at the time he was questioned.

Impeachment by the House of Representatives

In September 1997, Starr submitted his findings to Congress in a lengthy document (the so-called Starr Report) in which he reported that he believed Clinton had committed perjury. Voting along partisan lines, the Republican-dominated House of Representatives sent articles of impeachment to the Senate, charging Clinton with lying under oath and obstructing justice. Since Starr had already completed an extensive investigation, the House Judiciary Committee conducted no investigations of its own into Clinton's alleged wrongdoing. The House began impeachment hearings against Clinton before the mid-term elections. 

Clinton was impeached on December 19, 1998, by the House of Representatives on grounds of perjury to a grand jury (by a 228–206 vote) and obstruction of justice (by a 221–212 vote). Two other articles of impeachment failed – a second count of perjury in the Jones case (by a 205–229 vote) and one accusing Clinton of abuse of power (by a 148–285 vote). Four Republicans opposed all four articles, while five Democrats voted for three of them and one Democrat for all four. 

Acquittal by the U.S. Senate

The Senate refused to meet to hold an impeachment trial before the end of the old term, so the trial was held over until the next Congress. The Senate trial began on January 7, 1999, with Chief Justice of the United States William Rehnquist presiding. It ended on February 12, when the Senate emerged from its closed deliberations and voted on the articles of impeachment. The perjury charge was defeated with 45 votes for conviction and 55 against, and the obstruction of justice charge was defeated with 50 for conviction and 50 against.

Although acquitted, Clinton did become the first president to be found in contempt of court. Nevertheless, although he lost his law license, he remained a popular president and left office at the end of his second term with an approval rating of 66%, the highest of any U.S. president.

Bill Clinton's Impeachment Process

Floor proceedings in the U.S. Senate during the 1998 impeachment trial of Bill Clinton, who was narrowly acquitted of both charges.