Bill Clinton And The Monica Lewinsky Affair
Wikimedia CommonsBill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
In 1998, United States President Bill Clinton addressed the nation. He did not have a speech about war or the economy, but about a young White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. As the cameras rolled — and countless curious Americans tuned in — Clinton famously swore that he had not had “sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”
However, the truth of Clinton’s relationship with Lewinsky would not only become one of the biggest scandals of the 1990s, but one of the most shocking presidential sex scandals in American history.
Lewinsky had started an unpaid internship at the White House back in June 1995. She and the president quickly struck up a friendly, flirtatious relationship, and began to work closely together after a federal government shutdown. In November 1995, Clinton invited Lewinsky to his private study.
“We talked briefly and sort of acknowledged that there had been a chemistry that was there before and that we were both attracted to each other and then he asked me if he could kiss me,” Lewinsky later said.
Wikimedia CommonsThis 1990s scandal helped lead to an even bigger one — the Bill Clinton impeachment trial.
The affair lasted about 18 months, and the two tried to keep it secret. But after Lewinsky was transferred to the Pentagon, she confided in a colleague named Linda Tripp, who then told Ken Starr, an independent counsel who was investigating allegations of wrongdoing in the Clinton White House.
In August 1998, Clinton admitted in his grand jury testimony that he’d had an “inappropriate” relationship with Lewinsky, but denied that it had been sexual (since they had not had sexual intercourse). Lewinsky also admitted to the affair and described what they had done together. Then, in September, the Starr Report released sordid details of their affair to the American public.
This, in turn, helped lead to the Clinton impeachment trial, due to Starr’s claim that Clinton lied under oath to a grand jury about his relationship with Lewinsky. But even though the president was ultimately acquitted, his affair with Monica Lewinsky remains one of the top scandals of the 1990s.
