Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal rocks the White House
The United States was rocked by a political sex scandal that involved 49-year-old President Bill Clinton and 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
The relationships is said to have taken place between 1995 and 1997, but the news of the scandal first broke on January 17, 1998.
In late January Clinton spoke at a White House press conference, and issued a denial in which he said he ‘did not have sexual relations with that woman’.
In the days that followed First Lady Hillary Clinton dismissed the allegations on American TV as a “vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced his run for president.”
Further investigation led to charges of perjury and to the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998 by the U.S. House of Representatives.
In February 1999 Clinton was acquitted on all impeachment charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in a 21day Senate trial.
He was held in civil contempt of court by Judge Susan Webber Wright for giving misleading testimony in the Paula Jones case regarding Lewinsky and was also fined $90,000 by Wright.
His license to practice law was suspended in Arkansas for five years; he was also disbarred from presenting cases in front of the United States Supreme Court.
The Jones case took place in 1997. She was a former Arkansas state employee who sued U.S. President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment.
During the case Lewinsky denied having engaged in a sexual relationship with Clinton.
But her friend, Linda Tripp, had recorded conversations where Lewinsky discussed her affair with Clinton. Tripp then turned the tapes over to Kenneth Starr, an independent counsel investigating Clinton’s misconduct in office, this lead to the scandal coming to light.
Clinton remained as President of the United States until 2001.