• Hi Guest!

    The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress

Bill Clinton admitted his affair

R

Ricardolindo

Well-known member
Location
Portugal
What if Bill Clinton had admitted to his affair with Monica Lewinsky? Would Congress still try to impeach him for abuse of power? Even if they did, I think it would fail, as that article of impeachment was overwhelmingly voted down in our timeline. Regardless, is this enough for Gore to win in 2000?
 
Arthur_Phuxache said:
Of course. The GOP had been looking for an ironclad pretext for impeachment since 1993
Click to expand...

I very much doubt they would have gone for Lewinsky as the case at the time. A presidential affair in and of itself would be very difficult to turn into something impeacheable. That's not to say that there weren't those who voiced the concern at the time that Clinton was a sexual predator who abused his power to get young women to sleep with him under very creepy pretexts, but those were very much in the minority. Indeed, pretty much all leading feminist voices at the time (Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, etc.) not just firmly supported the President, but were outright hostile to Lewinsky. It is first in a post-MeToo era that we've begun to see some re-evaluation on the matter not just about how Bill Clinton actually behaved, but how he consistently surrounded himself with people to whom Loyalty to the President was the only virtue there was in the world, and so were very keen to cover up his tracks and protect him.

Newt Gingrich impeaching Clinton over being a problematic sex pest, however, I find even more difficult to see.

In all likelihood, the impeachment would have been over Whitewater.
 
Makemakean said:
I very much doubt they would have gone for Lewinsky as the case at the time. A presidential affair in and of itself would be very difficult to turn into something impeacheable.
Click to expand...

The President?
Performing a sex act on intern/government employee?
On government time/money/property?

Disgusting and egregious abuse of power!

A misdemeanour, even if not quite a high crime.
 
Last edited:
Makemakean said:
Then what did wish you say? "Hillary would have had the same grounds to divorce him as in OTL, and she likely wouldn't divorce him as in OTL"?
Click to expand...

She might come under intolerable pressure to divorce him, the denial-eventual confession process Bill Clinton undertook dissipated this.

Especially if Newsweek choose to publish all the details they have, when Clinton admits it.

Admitting it upfront, when there's already investigations into alleged corruption, literally could not happen.

This would be akin to Ken Starr striking oil, on land the Clintons had illegally sold.
 
Last edited:
Arthur_Phuxache said:
She might come under intolerable pressure to divorce him, the denial-eventual confession process Bill Clinton undertook dissipated this.
Click to expand...

And you could just as equally make the case that the denial-eventual confession just made the situation worse, for not just had he now had an affair, he had also for the longest period lied about, and made his wife repeat his lies in public and openly state that she believed in him. It made her look far more like a woman who had been fucked over by her husband, not less.

Arthur_Phuxache said:
The President?
Performing a sex act on intern?
On government time/money/property?

Disgusting! Typical Democrat!

A misdemeanour, if not quite a high crime.
Click to expand...

There is no precedent to invoke to impeach someone over an extramarital affair. There are precedents to invoke to impeach someone over lying under oath. Even if you think that Republican politicians are completely unscrupulous, and would by instinct be open to the idea of impeaching Bill Clinton over simply using the Oval Office bathroom ("The President? Defecating not ten feet away from the Resolute desk where Ronald Reagan would work? On government time/money/property? Disgusting! Typical Democrat!"), they are not dumb enough to try a scheme that they are not convinced can be cloaked in legitimacy.

There is after all a reason why Obama was never impeached by the United States House of Representatives, even though the Republicans held the House for six years of his Presidency, and the Senate for two of them. And it isn't "Because the Republican leadership in Congress liked Obama."
 
Makemakean said:
("The President? Defecating not ten feet away from the Resolute desk where Ronald Reagan would work? On government time/money/property? Disgusting! Typical Democrat!")
Click to expand...

Evacuation of bodily waste is an involuntary act.

Inviting a fellow government employee to suck your membrum virile, and who knows what else whilst in elected public office however is not.
 
Makemakean said:
I very much doubt they would have gone for Lewinsky as the case at the time. A presidential affair in and of itself would be very difficult to turn into something impeacheable. That's not to say that there weren't those who voiced the concern at the time that Clinton was a sexual predator who abused his power to get young women to sleep with him under very creepy pretexts, but those were very much in the minority. Indeed, pretty much all leading feminist voices at the time (Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, etc.) not just firmly supported the President, but were outright hostile to Lewinsky. It is first in a post-MeToo era that we've begun to see some re-evaluation on the matter not just about how Bill Clinton actually behaved, but how he consistently surrounded himself with people to whom Loyalty to the President was the only virtue there was in the world, and so were very keen to cover up his tracks and protect him.

Newt Gingrich impeaching Clinton over being a problematic sex pest, however, I find even more difficult to see.

In all likelihood, the impeachment would have been over Whitewater.
Click to expand...

Maybe they can find something under the "abuse of power" clause, though I don't think it'll amount to much and would be shakier than lying under oath, and as you said Gingrich impeaching Clinton over this would be odd.
 
lerk said:
Maybe they can find something under the "abuse of power" clause, though I don't think it'll amount to much and would be shakier than lying under oath, and as you said Gingrich impeaching Clinton over this would be odd.
Click to expand...

They did try to impeach him for abuse of power, too, but it was overwhelmingly voted down.
 
Arthur_Phuxache said:
Because they didn't?
Click to expand...

And they didn't try to impeach him for the affair either.

Instead they went for perjury before a grand jury, perjury in a civil case, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power in that he either lied when questioned or simply refused to answer questions given him.
 
Ricardolindo said:
They did try to impeach him for abuse of power, too, but it was overwhelmingly voted down.
Click to expand...

The abuse of power case against Bill Clinton was not that he had abused his power in having sex with an intern, but for having at various points lied about it, been economic with the truth, made misleading statements, and at times just outright refused to answer questions about it. Specifically:

The President abused his power by refusing and failing to respond to certain written requests for admission and willfully made perjurious, false, and misleading sworn statements in response to certain written requests for admission propounded to him by the Committee.
Click to expand...
 
Makemakean said:
The abuse of power case against Bill Clinton was not that he had abused his power in having sex with an intern, but for having at various points lied about it, been economic with the truth, made misleading statements, and at times just outright refused to answer questions about it. Specifically:
Click to expand...

Thanks for the correction.
 
You can actually read the whole thing for yourself to get a clear view of what specifically it was that the Republicans were formally accusing Bill Clinton of doing, and what precisely it was that they were referring to as constituting impeacheable offenses.

I think it says a lot about how President Clinton and his team were able to frame the narrative in that to very many people, this whole sordid affair is remembered as "Congress tried to impeach the President on the grounds that he had had a sexual relationship with a consenting adult", and not, "Congress tried to impeach the President on the grounds that he had used the tools and powers of his office to engage in witness tampering to make himself look less bad in an upcoming legal case in which the President was accused of sexual assault".

Now you might well disagree with the notion that President Clinton did use the tools and powers of his office to engage in witness tampering to make himself look less bad in the Paula Jones case, but that was what the Republicans were charging him with.
 
Arthur_Phuxache said:
Whichever way you slice it, Slick Willie is going to get away with it, and it won't affect the outcome of the 2000 PE.
Click to expand...

Well I mean, if Congress doesn't try to impeach him over lying about Lewinsky because he never lied about Lewinsky, then obviously he's not going to get impeached over lying about Lewinsky.

So, yeah, I suppose he does "get away with it", in the sense that you can get away with murder if you just make sure you never kill someone in the first place.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top