All language subtitles for (2012) American Experience. Bill Clinton. III The Survivor.eng

Buoyed by his convincing
reelection,

Bill Clinton sailed confidently
into his second term.

The economy was booming,
lifting millions of people

into better jobs, better homes
and better lives.

We have much to be thankful for.

With four years of growth,

we have won back the basic
strength of our economy.

With crime and welfare rolls
declining,

we are winning back
our optimism,

the enduring faith that we can
master any difficulty.

Around the world,

American prestige and power
had never been higher.

Even Clinton's longing
to "repair the breach"

with Republicans
seemed possible.

It was two different worlds.

1997, beginning of Bill
Clinton's second term,

was totally different
from the first term.

It was American politics
the way it should be.

A Republican Congress working
with the Democratic president,

trying to find areas
they would agree on,

the hatred toward
Bill Clinton was gone.

The hatred toward
Hillary Clinton was gone.

Things had finally quieted down.

But in Bill Clinton's life,

things never stay quiet
for long.

By early 1997, at great risk
to himself and his presidency,

Bill Clinton
had been carrying on

his affair with Monica Lewinsky
for over a year.

I've asked myself
a number of times

why he put himself
and his presidency in jeopardy

in such a careless way.

The presidency is probably
the loneliest office in America.

Regardless of your friends,

regardless of how good
your marriage is,

regardless of anything,
you are alone there at the top.

And maybe Bill Clinton,

who so much needed and wanted
to be loved,

couldn't say no to someone who
was going to give him affection

and wanted affection back.

The previous spring, Lewinsky's
superiors in the White House

had begun to notice her
attraction to the president.

Quietly, she was transferred
to a job across town

at the Pentagon.

There, Lewinsky befriended
a career civil servant

named Linda Tripp.

Like Lewinsky, Tripp
had come to the Pentagon

after years working
at the White House,

first in the Bush administration

and then, less happily,
in Clinton's.

Linda Tripp didn't like
the Clinton people.

She didn't like their politics,

she didn't like
their personalities,

she didn't like
their social lives,

and she simmered
with resentments.

And she finds this young woman
a couple cubicles away,

Monica Lewinsky, who decides
to cry on her shoulder.

It was very much a big
sister-little sister,

mother-daughter relationship.

Monica would tell her
everything.

Linda genuinely cared
about Monica,

but there was one
overriding emotion,

and that was what
Bill Clinton was doing.

And... I'm telling you,
this was an angry woman.

Shortly before meeting Lewinsky,

Tripp had approached
conservative literary agent

Lucianne Goldberg about writing
a tell-all book

on the Clinton White House,

but the project
had gone nowhere.

In the fall of 1997,

she contacted Goldberg
with a new project:

the true story
of an ongoing affair

between a White House intern

and the president
of the United States.

She called me and she said,

"He's having an affair with
a girl who's 23 years old."

And I said, "Yeah, yeah."

You know, the kind of agenting
that I did,

I heard a lot of wild stuff and
people have to prove things.

So she said,

"No, I'm not kidding you,
he's having an affair with...

and I know the girl
and I talk to her every day."

And I said, "Well,
can you prove this?

"Do you have pictures,
is she willing to step forward,

is she willing to go
on the Today show and say...?"

And she said, "Well, no,
I'm sure she wouldn't.

This is a big secret."

I said, "Well, you got to...

"you got to do something
to prove to me

"so I can prove to a publisher
that this...

this wild story is true."

And I said, "You say you talk
to her every day,

how about taping
your phone conversations?"

And she agreed that that
would be a cool idea

and she went to RadioShack
and bought a tape recorder

and plugged it into her phone.

Linda, I don't know why I have
these feelings for him.

I never expected to feel
this way about him.

And the first time I ever
looked into his eyes close up

and was with him alone, I
saw somebody totally different

than I had expected to see.

And that's the person
I fell in love with.

Linda wanted the world

to know about this,

and I think the motivation
was no...

you know, no deeper,
no more shallow than that.

That was it.

She wanted the world to know
about this relationship.

She came to believe
that fate did call her

to expose these defects in this
president to the country.

On the other hand,

she becomes entwined
in a scandal

that she helped to create.

He was supposed
to call me again,

I wasn't home
and I was afraid to call.

What happened?

I don't know.

I saw him for 60 seconds.

So how was it?

I mean, we hug,
and I gave him the paperweight.

So, what did you wear?

I knew if the story broke huge

that people would start calling
Linda, and Linda would say,

"Call my agent."

And they would call her agent,

and her agent
would make a book deal,

and then would make some money,
and she would get a little money

and I would get
ten percent of it,

and that's the way
the world works.

Goldberg suggested Tripp
reach out

to Newsweek's Michael Isikoff.

Before long, the two were having
regular conversations.

She would kind of tease me

and she told me early on that
there was a woman,

who had been an intern,

and that she was having
an ongoing affair

with Bill Clinton.

I was taken aback,
as anybody would be.

So, I wanted to get Linda Tripp
to tell me as much as she could.

And so I kept talking to her.

Linda Tripp was not just talking
to Isikoff.

She had also begun
sharing her story

with the independent counsel
investigating the Clintons.

By 1997,
after more than two years,

Kenneth Starr's investigation
into Whitewater had stalled.

Short on evidence
or reliable witnesses,

he had too little
to bring charges

against the president
or first lady.

We know that they were
running out of gas,

and running out of rope, and had
just about completely failed,

until Monica came along.

In early January 1998,

Starr's office received
a phone call from Tripp.

She revealed the existence

of her tape recordings
of Monica Lewinsky.

At first, Starr saw little value
in the tapes.

A presidential affair, no matter
how sordid, was not illegal.

But there was something
in Tripp's story

that caught Starr's attention:

the president had asked
his friend Vernon Jordan

to help find Lewinsky a job
in the private sector.

Could this be an attempt,
Starr wondered,

to buy Lewinsky's silence?

I'm just... I'm starting to get
a little nervous about Vernon.

Why?

I just want everything
to be easy.

I want him to call me and say,

"You know, how does
this amount of money,

doing this here sound?"

And I say, "That sounds great."

He says, "Okay, consider it
a done deal."

Clinton had good reason
to worry about whether Lewinsky

would keep their affair secret.

She had just been subpoenaed
to testify

in a sexual harassment lawsuit
against the president

brought by a former Arkansas
state worker named Paula Jones.

Tipped off to the affair,
Jones' lawyers believed

the president's relationship
with Lewinsky

would demonstrate
a pattern of behavior.

I thought it showed

President Clinton's proclivity
to make sexual advances

to extremely young,
low-level employees,

and President Clinton

had obtained jobs
for Monica Lewinsky

as part of his effort
to control her.

Highly relevant
to Paula Jones' case.

Ken Starr was watching
the Jones lawsuit

with great interest.

If Clinton was trying to
influence Lewinsky's testimony,

he would be committing
a major crime.

Suddenly, Starr glimpsed
a bridge from Whitewater

to a potentially more fruitful
area of investigation.

The bridge is that the president
and those close to him

may be encouraging Monica to lie
in the Paula Jones case

and therefore suborning perjury.

That's the little connection
they make.

It's tenuous at this point,
but they go for it.

With Starr's determined efforts,

three seemingly
unrelated threads

from Clinton's past
and present...

Whitewater, Paula Jones,
and Monica Lewinsky...

Had suddenly come together

in one potentially
devastating investigation.

And a single reporter threatened
to upend the whole thing.

I knew we had

a blockbuster of a story.

And, of course,
I had to call Starr's team.

And fair to say that when I did,
they freaked out.

They realized that
were I to publish a story,

it would blow their
investigation wide open.

Starr hoped to convince Lewinsky

to secretly tape record
the president

before Isikoff's story
tipped him off.

On January 16, he sent Linda
Tripp to meet with Lewinsky

at a food court
at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

Before the friends sat down,
FBI agents swooped in.

The FBI grabs Monica
in front of the Cinnabon

and takes her upstairs
in the Ritz-Carlton,

and tries to get her to flip.

But Monica basically just drives
them crazy with her histrionics,

with her refusal to talk.

They felt like one of these
scenes in a movie

where a bunch of grown men

are trying to change
the diapers of a baby

and don't know how to do it.

Monica's crying,
she's kind of wailing out loud.

What they weren't counting on,

what they hadn't figured out is,

"So what to do we do when Monica
is not going to tell us

whether she had an affair
with Bill Clinton?"

Unable to secure
Lewinsky's cooperation

against the president,
Starr still had a card to play.

The next day, January 17, 1998,

Clinton was scheduled to give
his deposition under oath

in the Paula Jones lawsuit.

If he lied about his affair
with Lewinsky,

Starr would be able
to bring a charge of perjury.

He was about to testify,

and they knew he was going
to lie about Monica

and that was, if you want
to call it, the trap.

"And when a man
is asked about this,

"a married man is asked about
this, he's going to lie.

"And once he lies, we got him.

We got him!"

You may show the witness
definition number one.

Barred from questioning
the president himself,

Starr had to rely
on Paula Jones' lawyers.

Lead attorney Jim Fisher
began the deposition

by introducing a definition
of sexual relations

taken from a federal statute.

In an effort to avoid ambiguity,

I thought I would
use a definition

that was well-grounded
in federal law.

So I thought that there
could be no doubt

that these were
unambiguous definitions

for which the law had
a well-recognized meaning.

Fisher's efforts
to avoid ambiguity

had the opposite effect,

leaving Clinton a loophole
through which to escape.

So the record
is completely clear,

have you ever had sexual
relations with Monica Lewinsky

as that term is defined
in deposition Exhibit 1?

I have never had sexual
relations with Monica Lewinsky.

I never had an affair with her.

If they had simply asked him,

"Did Monica Lewinsky ever
perform oral sex on you?"

the gig would have been up.

Instead, they gave him this
ridiculously complicated,

hard-to-understand definition of
sex, which allowed him to parse.

If I could have done it
over again,

I would have just asked
the salacious questions.

I would have let him have it.

I was trying to be respectful,
and I paid a price for it.

Having said that,

he clearly didn't answer
the questions honestly.

If she told someone

that she had a sexual
affair with you

beginning in November of 1995,
would that be a lie?

It's certainly not the truth.

It would not be the truth.

The turning point was when
I started to ask him about gifts

that he had given to her
and she had given to him.

And I described some of them
quite specifically.

There was a book of poetry
by Walt Whitman, for example.

I thought his mood changed
visibly at that point.

His face became bright red,
there was tension in his face.

He knew at this point

there was a mole.

There was a rat in the woodpile.

Someone has given
all of this damning information

to these people.

He was in trouble.

Clinton's secret affair
with Monica Lewinsky

was now hurtling
toward public exposure.

The very day that the president
was deposed

in the Jones lawsuit,

Michael Isikoff filed his story
on the Lewinsky affair.

But at the last minute,

his editors at Newsweek
backtracked

and decided to kill the story.

Obviously, we had

an enormous scoop here that was
going to shake Washington.

Some of my colleagues
and some of the editors agreed,

but at the end of the day,
the brass at Newsweek

just were not willing
to pull the trigger.

Michael told me.

He said,
"They aren't gonna run with it.

"They're afraid of it,
they don't like it.

Nasty stuff,
they don't want to do it."

And I said,
"Well, what am I gonna do?

I'm sitting on this thing."

In her frustration,

Goldberg turned to an internet
gossip columnist

named Matt Drudge.

A couple of people said,

"Call Matt Drudge."

Or, I said,
"Well, tell him to call me."

So at 11:00 that night,
he called me and that was it.

It went kaboom!

The president, the intern, the
accusations, and the denials.

The allegations that the
president had an illicit affair

with a 21-year-old intern

and then attempted
to cover it up

blasted through
the White House today.

This scandal could unravel
the administration.

Over the next 72 hours,

the story made its way
around the world.

Caught unawares,

Clinton's cabinet members
rushed to his defense.

I believe that the allegations
are completely untrue.

I'll second that...

Aides who had worked for him

for five to six years
at this point

are just on the floor.

They can't figure out

what they're supposed to think
about this,

much less what they're
supposed to do about this.

I was convinced that Bill
Clinton had been set up.

He's got all these enemies
who are out to get him.

He wouldn't be so stupid

as to jeopardize
his entire presidency.

For what?

No, that was not
the Bill Clinton I knew.

Clinton did confide
in the one person

he knew would not judge him.

When the Lewinsky scandal broke,

the president paged me
and I returned the call.

And he said,

"Ever since I got here
to the White House,

"I've had to shut my body down...
Sexually, I mean...

"but I screwed up
with this girl.

"I didn't do
what they said I did,

but I may have done so much that
I can't prove my innocence."

And I said to him,

"The problem that presidents
have is not the sin,

"it's the cover up,
and you should explore

just telling the American people
the truth."

He said, "Really, do you think
I could do that?"

And I said, "Let me test it,
let me run a poll."

So I took a poll and I tested
popular attitudes on that

and I called him back
and I said,

"They will forgive the adultery,

but they won't easily forgive
that you lied."

Mr. President, welcome.

Thank you, Jim.

Clinton disregarded
Morris' advice.

In interviews days after
the story broke,

he continued
to hide his relationship

with Lewinsky.

The news of this day
is that Kenneth Starr,

the independent counsel,
is investigating allegations

that you suborned perjury by
encouraging a 24-year-old woman,

a former White House intern,

to lie under oath
in a civil deposition

about her having had
an affair with you.

Mr. President,
is that true?

That is not true.

I did not ask anyone to tell
anything other than the truth.

There is no improper
relationship.

And I intend to cooperate
with this inquiry.

But that is not true.

He says, quite indignantly,

"There is no relationship
with Monica Lewinsky."

And people begin to focus
on the words.

"He said 'is, ' didn't he?

He didn't say 'was. ""

What is he trying to say here?
Is he parsing here?

MIKE McCURRY:
I didn't notice

the peculiar tense issue
until later.

But I did think to myself,
I said,

"Boy, there's got to be
a stronger denial of this."

And I think some group
of us said,

"Look, you're denying this,
you've gotta be strong.

"You've gotta get out there
and say, you know,

how outrageous this is."

And, of course, I think that was
dreadful advice in retrospect.

I want you to listen to me,
I'm going to say this again.

I did not have sexual relations
with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.

I never told anybody to lie.

Not a single time.

Never.

These allegations are false,

and I need to go back to work
for the American people.

Thank you.

I was watching with a friend
in my office and I said,

"That is it,
this man is dead meat.

"That is it,
because I know that he's lying,

"and if I know that he's lying,

then the rest of the world
is gonna know he's lying."

Having set off
on a course of deception,

there was no turning back.

Clinton continued to press
his lie, even to Hillary.

He tells her it's not true.

He tells her
that Monica Lewinsky

was a troubled young woman,

that he had just tried
to be nice to her,

to mentor her in some ways.

And that's a story
that Hillary Clinton hangs onto

like a life raft.

The day after Clinton's denial,

Hillary appeared
on national television.

I just think that a lot of this
is deliberately designed

to sensationalize charges
against my husband

because everything else
they've tried has failed.

She focused her energy
and her anger and her ire

at the external enemies...

At Ken Starr, at the press,
at the Republicans in Congress.

They were the ones who were
doing this, not her husband.

The great story here,
for anybody willing to find it

and write about it
and explain it,

is this vast right-wing
conspiracy

that has been conspiring
against my husband

since the day he announced
for president.

She says, "This is all about
the vast right-wing conspiracy,"

and in that moment,
sort of sets the tone

for the defense of the president
against these charges.

To the Clintons,

the Lewinsky scandal
was just the latest front

in a war waged
by their political enemies

to destroy them.

The Lewinsky scandal

was not really the Lewinsky
scandal.

It was really an attempt
by the Republican Party

to have a coup d'état

based on having discovered the
president's personal behavior.

This time, however, even some
allies of the Clintons

found their protestations
hollow.

You can never blame your enemies

for doing what your enemies
will predictably do.

You can only blame yourself

for what you have given
to your enemies.

If you've given them
absolutely nothing,

guess what they're gonna
be able to do?

Nothing.

As the scandal raged around him,

Clinton did his best to focus,
he said,

"On the job the American people
hired me to do."

He's coming to work every day,
he says,

and he's going to do the job
that's in front of him.

Privately, behind the scenes,

it's a completely
different story.

Of course he's obsessed by this.

Of course he's consumed by this.

Of course he is distracted.

He has a meeting with the head
of the World Bank, for instance,

who goes back to his office,
calls Clinton's chief of staff,

and says, "It's like
he wasn't even there."

"I feel like a character
in the novel Darkness at Noon,"

Clinton told an aide.

"I am surrounded by
an oppressive force

that is creating a lie about me
and I can't get the truth out."

In fact, the truth
was closing in.

All he can do is buy time.

All he can do is hope Starr
doesn't have the goods,

doesn't have the evidence,

that there's no physical
evidence that could prove it.

Before long, Starr had
his physical evidence.

In July, Monica Lewinsky reached
a deal to give her testimony

in exchange for immunity
from prosecution.

As part of the deal,

she turned over a blue dress
stained with Clinton's semen.

The next day, seeing no way out,

Clinton himself agreed
to answer questions

before Starr's grand jury.

Before the president
faced Starr, however,

he had to face Hillary.

That morning, Clinton awoke the
first lady from a deep sleep.

Pacing the room, he finally
confessed he had lied.

It was probably the most
shattering moment in her life.

He'd lied to her
and he'd used her,

he let her go out and
essentially make alibis for him.

And it not only jeopardized

everything they'd worked for
all their lives,

but totally humiliated
her and Chelsea,

and she couldn't
trust him anymore.

Later that day,

Clinton's deposition was
scheduled to take place

in the Map Room
of the White House.

The president's lawyers

had won an important concession
from Ken Starr:

the interrogation could not last
longer than four hours.

Good afternoon, Mr. President.

Good afternoon.

Could you please state your full
name for the record, sir.

William Jefferson Clinton.

Bill Clinton's strategy was
to run out the clock.

And so, he would start
talking about

little stories from Arkansas.

He would, you know,
take an aside

and give a lecture about justice
and the American dream.

And all along, the clock
is ticking out.

Let me begin
with the correct answer:

I don't know for sure.

Well, it would depend
upon the facts.

I think on the whole, people in
the uniformed civil service...

If we circle number one...
this is my circle here.

I remember doing it

so I could focus
only on those two lines...

It depends upon what the meaning
of the word "is" is.

The Starr prosecutors walked out

of that grand jury testimony,
totally demoralized.

They knew they had been
clobbered by President Clinton.

And even though it was just
obvious what he was doing,

it was a masterful performance
on Clinton's part.

If Clinton could finagle his way
out of Starr's legal trap,

he could not, he knew,

escape the judgment
of the American people.

And we've got about 45.

That night, President Bill
Clinton addressed the nation

in one of the most unusual
and anticipated broadcasts

in American history.

Stand by.

Five seconds...

Good evening.

This afternoon, in this room,
from this chair,

I testified before the Office
of Independent Counsel

and the grand jury.

I answered their questions
truthfully,

including questions
about my private life,

questions no American citizen
would ever want to answer.

Still, I must take complete
responsibility

for all my actions,
both public and private.

And that is why
I am speaking to you tonight.

Indeed I did have a relationship
with Ms. Lewinsky

that was not appropriate.

In fact, it was wrong.

For many of those
closest to Clinton,

this was the first time they'd
heard him admit the affair,

and they were deeply hurt.

Yes, I felt betrayed.

He lied to me, yeah.

He lied to a lot of people
about that,

not least of whom was himself.

The morning after his
grand jury testimony

and his speech to the nation,

he and Hillary and Chelsea

head off to Martha's Vineyard
for their annual vacation.

It may be the worst-timed
family vacation

in the history of the world,

but there they are,

heading out to the helicopter
on the South Lawn.

And the staff is sitting
in the White House thinking,

"What are we going to do about
the walk to the helicopter?"

They decide they can't
do anything.

They can't orchestrate it,
they can't spin it;

they are powerless to affect it.

And in the end it falls
to Chelsea Clinton, a teenager,

to take both of their hands,
on her own initiative,

take her father's hand in one,
her mother's hand in another

and walk across the lawn,

literally the bridge
between her parents

at this moment of crisis
between them.

As the Clintons spent a tense
vacation on Martha's Vineyard,

Washington was abuzz
with talk of resignation

or even impeachment.

At this moment,
he was in maximum peril.

Clinton's advisors
were acutely aware

that President Nixon
was driven out of office

not by the opposing party,
but by his own party,

when the Republicans
came to him and said,

"Enough, you have to leave."

That's when President Nixon
resigned.

And so there was real concern

that Democrats were going
to begin bolting,

and they were not returning
President Clinton's calls.

They were not happy with this.

There was a real concern
that this could be

the beginning of the end.

It had been a quarter
of a century

since Richard Nixon
had resigned the presidency

rather than endure
an impeachment.

Now, many were urging Clinton
to do the same.

But Clinton
had no such intentions.

There were the inevitable
comparisons

between Nixon and Clinton.

I always thought there was
a fundamental difference.

Both Nixon and Clinton
were convinced

that it was their
political enemies

that were responsible
for all their troubles.

The difference is that
Nixon always suspected

that his political enemies
were better than him.

Clinton hated
his political enemies

and was convinced
they were beneath him.

And that was the reason,
at the end of the day,

Clinton was never going to do
what Richard Nixon did,

which was to give into them
and resign.

Yes, go ahead.

Mr. President,

all these questions
about your personal life

have to be painful
to you and your family.

At what point do you consider
that it's just not worth it

and you consider
resigning from office?

Never.

You know, I was
elected to do a job.

I think the American people know
two or three things about me now

that they didn't know
the first time...

this kind of effort
was made against me.

I think they know that
I care very much about them,

that I care about
ordinary people

whose voices aren't
often heard here.

And I think they know I have
worked very, very hard for them.

Hard work had always been
Clinton's salvation

in moments of vulnerability.

Now, as he sought to show
the American people

he could still function,

he bore down on a suddenly
violent foreign policy crisis.

Early on the morning
of August 7, 1998,

two truck bombs
exploded simultaneously

outside U.S. embassies
in Tanzania and Kenya.

The death toll reached 200,
with another 5,000 injured.

Within hours, the FBI
had pegged responsibility

to a little-known terrorist
organization called Al Qaeda.

Clinton soon ordered his
national security team

to hunt down
and destroy Al Qaeda

and its elusive leader,
Osama Bin Laden.

CIA had information... it thought
it was reliable information...

That Bin Laden
and the Al Qaeda leadership

were going to come together
at a certain camp,

in Afghanistan, at a certain
date, at a certain time.

We went to the president
and said,

"We want to be able to land
cruise missiles at that camp

while they're there."

The order would have
huge political risks.

Clinton knew that it would be
widely seen as an attempt

to distract the public
from his own personal problems.

Somebody said something about,

"Well, you know, we have
to take into account

the political realities in the
United States at the moment."

Which was sort of
code words for,

"You've got this Monica Lewinsky
scandal going on."

And he snapped.

He just very quickly
and sharply said,

"You don't think about that.

"You think about
national security.

"You give me the national
security advice

"you would give me
if this were not going on.

You let me worry about that."

On August 20, Clinton ordered

a series of missile strikes
against Al Qaeda,

targeting training camps
in Afghanistan

and a plant in Sudan

that the administration
claimed was involved

in making chemical weapons.

The missiles narrowly missed
their main target.

We didn't kill Bin Laden.

We didn't have that to show
for the attack.

And people, frankly,

a lot of people in the Congress
and in the media

said this was just an attempt
to "wag the dog."

The timing of all of this
is more than coincidental,

and I think it may very well
run the risk...

the president may run the risk

of having an even more cynical
view of his behavior.

He knew that.

He knew that was going
to happen.

He knew it would make it worse
for him to do this.

But he launched the attack
because he thought it was

the right national security
thing to do.

That's what we told him.

And he said, "I'll do it anyway,

even though it makes
it worse for me."

Things were deteriorating
quickly for the president.

On September 9, Kenneth Starr
finally delivered to Congress

the long-awaited results
of his investigation.

In 450 pages of sometimes
salacious detail,

Starr laid out his case
against Clinton for perjury,

obstruction of justice,

and abuse of office
in the Lewinsky affair,

while dropping
almost all reference

to his original investigation
of Whitewater.

Lawyers are thorough.

Good lawyers are thorough.

There could be absolutely no gap
whatsoever between the facts

and then a reasonable conclusion
to be drawn from the facts.

The case had to be proven.

The House Sergeant at Arms

officially unsealed
the document at mid-afternoon.

It had been advertised
as steamy,

and you could almost see
the steam rising

as the boxes came open.

According to the sources,

the report focuses
almost entirely

on the president's relationship
with Lewinsky.

However this turns out,

it is a turning point
in Mr. Clinton's presidency.

It is not an exaggeration to say

that he has less control
of his destiny

than at any time
since he was elected.

The Starr report
was a turning point,

but not in the way
the independent counsel

or his Republican supporters
had expected.

Polls showed that after
four years and $40 million,

most Americans believed the
investigations against Clinton

were more persecution
than prosecution.

The Republicans had so undercut
their own credibility

in the way they were going
after him

that people, although they
deplored what he had done

and thought it was stupid

and it demeaned the office
of the presidency

and tarnished the presidency,

tarnished him and had been
a devastating blow

to Hillary and Chelsea
and all those things

that went through
people's minds,

they looked at the Republicans
and they had enough already.

After the release
of Starr's report,

Clinton appeared
in the Rose Garden

to offer his first full-throated
apology to the American people.

I am profoundly sorry
for all I have done wrong

in words and deeds.

I never should have misled
the country, the Congress,

my friends or my family.

Quite simply,
I gave in to my shame.

I have been condemned by
my accusers with harsh words,

and while it's hard

to hear yourself called
deceitful and manipulative,

I remember Ben Franklin's
admonition

that our critics
are our friends,

for they do show us our faults.

If Clinton was willing
at last to take responsibility,

the American people were willing
to forgive him.

He disappoints them every time
on some level,

but he always gets up
and tries to make it better.

You know, what else can you ask
from a sinner, right?

And that's how he would define
himself, "I'm a sinner.

"And I try to be better
every time,

and I learn from my mistakes
and I go forward."

And I think the American public
is pretty forgiving of a guy

who sees himself as a sinner.

Weary of the attacks on Clinton,

Americans punished
Republican candidates

in the congressional elections
in November.

Upsetting precedent,

Democrats actually gained seats
in Congress.

I think the message the American
people sent was loud and clear:

we want progress
over partisanship

and unity over division.

Blamed for the defeat,
Newt Gingrich resigned his post

as speaker of the House
of Representatives.

To the frustration
of his Republican opponents,

Clinton seemed to have won over
the American people again.

There are two or three things

that I have witnessed
in my political career

that I never could figure out.

The fact that a lot of people

didn't think that
that was a serious problem

that he, you know, perjured
himself in his testimony,

and that he'd had a relationship

with that woman
Monica Lewinsky...

That did shock me,

and I've never quite figured out
how in the world could that be

that he'd come out
the back end of it

pretty much where he was
at the beginning.

It's just one of those things
I've never quite figured out.

Determined to punish
the president,

House Republicans, led by Texas
congressman Tom Delay,

played their last card:
impeachment.

A resolution impeaching
William Jefferson Clinton,

president of the United States,

for high crimes
and misdemeanors.

The Republicans were gripped

by just unreasoning hatred
of Bill Clinton.

They just despised the man

and could not stand that he was
going to get away with this.

"Article One: In his conduct

"while president
of the United States,

"William Jefferson Clinton,

"in violation
of his constitutional oath

"faithfully to execute
the office

"of president
of the United States,

"has willfully corrupted and
manipulated the judicial process

of the United States..."

On Saturday, December 19,

the House of Representatives
voted along party lines

to impeach the president
on two of four counts

involving obstruction of justice
and perjury.

On this vote, the yeas are 228,
the nays are 206.

Article one is adopted.

Bill Clinton had become

only the second president
in American history,

and the first
in more than a century,

to be impeached by the House.

The American people,

I call them to my side here
at the podium to verify to you

that the president committed
falsehoods under oath.

Republican leaders moved
the proceedings to the Senate,

where a two-thirds majority
was required

to convict the president
and remove him from office.

The Senate will convene
as a court of impeachment.

We are here today

because President
William Jefferson Clinton

decided to put himself
above the law.

This is not about sex.

This is about
obstruction of justice.

This is about a pattern,
this is about a scheme,

this is about a lot of lies.

For three long weeks,
with little hope of success,

13 Republican Congressmen

pressed the case
against Clinton.

This is not
about sexual misconduct

any more than Watergate was
about a third-rate burglary.

Finally, Arkansas Democratic
Senator Dale Bumpers rose

to express the sentiments
felt by many in the chamber

and the country as a whole.

We are here today because
the president suffered

a terrible moral lapse.

A marital infidelity,

not a breach
of the public trust,

not a crime against society.

It is a sex scandal.

H.L. Mencken said one time,

"When you hear somebody say,
'This is not about money, '

it's about money."

And when you hear somebody say,
"This is not about sex,"

it's about sex.

The Senate adjudges
that the respondent,

William Jefferson Clinton,
President of the United States,

is not guilty as charged in the
first article of impeachment.

What had begun
with a sexual indiscretion

more than three years earlier

and mushroomed into a full-scale
constitutional crisis

was finally over.

This time, however,
there was no triumph,

no crowing about
"The Comeback Kid."

Bill Clinton knew
that this time,

both he and the country
had paid a heavy price.

Bill Clinton, in his second
inaugural address,

said it was his ambition
during the second term

to be, quoting scripture,
"a repairer of the breach."

That ambition was not realized
in his second term

and it effectively died in 1998,
the year of scandal.

The fact that the president
was impeached

will always be part of his
story, part of his legacy.

It consumed a tremendous
amount of energy.

It undercut his standing.

And, I think,
limited his ability

to accomplish anything
outside of surviving

for almost two years.

And, you know, that's tragic.

Clinton created many
of his own problems,

but his enemies exaggerated,
enhanced, mythologized, lied,

were utterly hypocritical
in their attacks on him.

You know, to the extent that
I believe that every human being

is responsible
for their own lives,

he holds the responsibility
for it.

To the extent that context
shapes a life,

his enemies have a lot
to answer for.

Clinton had survived,
but the impeachment ordeal

seemed to have sapped much
of his drive and ambition.

President Clinton has more
than 700 days left in office

after he is acquitted
by the Senate,

and he promises to use
every single one of them

to its fullest.

But the constraints
were enormous at that point.

The big aspirations were gone.

The chances of re-inventing
Social Security

or re-inventing Medicare
just proved too elusive.

He had a Congress

which had just, literally,
put him on trial,

and was not willing to do
a lot of business with him.

In 2000, Clinton came
tantalizingly close

to the great historical
achievement

for which he had yearned,

but a peace agreement between
Israel and the Palestinians

broke down in the 11th hour.

The same year, after decades
of budget deficits,

the federal budget had a surplus
of nearly $240 billion,

an accomplishment for which
Clinton was given much credit.

It was only as her husband was
preparing to leave the stage

that Hillary finally stepped
front and center,

ready at last
to take her star turn.

The day the Senate votes
to acquit President Clinton

on impeachment charges,

Hillary Clinton is meeting
in the White House residence

with Harold Ickes
to plot a campaign

for the very same
United States Senate.

Literally the end of his crisis
is the birth of her new phase.

She said,
"I want to be independent.

I want to be judged
on my own merits."

And she finally released herself
from, you know,

the shadow of Bill Clinton
over her

and began making
her own decisions.

He then came to her support,

and there was nobody
more of a champion

for her Senate race
than Bill Clinton.

He was behind her all the way.

So even if I didn't know her

better than anybody
in this room,

I'd be for her.

That November,
as Vice-President Al Gore

lost the closest presidential
election in American history,

Hillary Clinton easily won
the Senate seat in New York.

I am profoundly grateful
to all of you

for giving me the chance
to serve you.

In his final round
of goodbye speeches,

Bill Clinton even bid farewell
to the Washington press corps.

You know, I read in the history
books how other presidents say

the White House is like
a penitentiary

and that every motive they have
is suspect.

Even George Washington
complained he was treated

like a common thief.

And they all say
they can't get away...

can't wait to get away.

I don't know what the heck
they're talking about.

I've had a wonderful time.

It's been an honor to serve
and fun to laugh.

I only wish that
we'd even laughed more

these last eight years,

because power's not the most
important thing in life

and only counts
for what you use it.

Listen, this guy loved
being president.

He even loved being president
when it was tough.

And a lot of times I would say,
"How does he smile?

"How does he keep laughing?

How does he keep
going through this?"

But it was because he got the
energy back from the people.

Whatever you think of the man,
he wanted to do the right thing

for the people of his county,
his state, his country,

and that never changed
about him.

Clinton departed the White House
for the last time

on Saturday, January 20, 2001.

In the end, he left
much as he had come:

a man loved by his friends
and loathed by his enemies;

a politician who had achieved
a great deal,

yet left behind a curious sense
of unfulfilled promise.

I believe he's an argument
without end,

that there will be people
discussing and debating

the significance of Bill Clinton
for a long time.

Bill Clinton will be remembered

as one of our best presidents
in the 20th century,

who accomplished
an enormous amount,

and he will be remembered

because of his personal
recklessness.

And that is tragic,

because so much more
could have happened.

Did Bill Clinton
help the country,

and was the country better
for having him as president?

I think, unquestionably, yes.

But, are there elements
of tragedy here as well?

Huge elements of tragedy

in terms of failures
and opportunities lost,

and risks made that didn't
have to be made?

Undoubtedly.

I know a lot of people think
that Clinton's presidency

was a wasted opportunity.

But he came to office in 1992

and left a stronger country
in 2000.

I don't know if you can say of
a president who served us well

and improved our material good

that it was
a wasted opportunity.

And it was sure
a lot of fun to watch.