History Of The Monica Lewinsky Scandal

The Monica Lewinsky scandal began in 1998, when America was shocked by a political sex scandal involving President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern in her early 20s. This would shake America’s trust in Bill Clinton even further. There were already other negative issues he was involved in, like the Jones case and Whitewater scandal. The Lewinsky affair would bring questioning as to whether or not Bill should even be trusted as a president. This scandal would go down in history and further tarnish Bill Clinton’s name for the rest of his presidency.
In 1955, Mrs. Lewinsky worked in an unpaid intern position in the chief of staff’s office. Then the interns were moved to the west wing of the White House in November. Interns

Later at her new job in the Pentagon, Lewinsky confided in coworker Linda Tripp about her affair with the president. Tripp started to tape some of her phone conversations with Lewinsky without Lewinsky knowing. In January of 1998, a gossip media source leaked that Newsweek had a story involving an affair between President Clinton and a White House intern. This sparked the whole storm of media coverage on the scandal involving Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. When news of the affair became public, Clinton denied the relationship on television stating the famous line, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”
There was another issue at the time that was heavily involved with the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Jones v. Clinton case. A woman named Paula Jones was suing Clinton for sexual harassment. Paula Jones had worked under Bill Clinton as a state clerk for Arkansas when he was the governor of Arkansas. This suit started in 1994, but lawsuits take time and the case was pushed back when Clinton used presidential immunity to try to hold the trial back. Jones then appealed and her case made it all the way up to the Supreme Court. It was in this trial, held by the Supreme Court, that Clinton made a mistake. He lied about his affair with Lewinsky, while being questioned, under oath, to a federal

Clinton had denied the relationship with Lewinsky when he was in court testifying for the Jones v. Clinton case. He was under oath at the time, and he was later proved to be lying when the affair was confirmed. This lie while under oath, while testifying in a federal court case too, made Bill Clinton liable to be charged with Perjury, “The voluntary violation of an oath or vow either by swearing to what is untrue or by omission to do what has been promised under oath” (Webster) and Obstruction of Justice. This charge of perjury and obstruction of justice created grounds for the impeachment of President Bill