A controversial issue that occurred not too long ago would be the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton. Clinton was impeached for having an inappropriate and unprofessional relationship with Monic Lewinski. Lewinski served as Clinton’s intern at The White House. The investigation to impeach Clinton began in October 1998 and he was impeached in December 1998. However, “Clinton was spared removal from office after the Senate voted to acquit him in February 1999” (Clinton Impeachment). The argument for Clinton needing to be impeached is that he lied in jury about his relationship status as well as he obstructed justice to cover up the relationship. The argument against Clinton needing to be impeached is the offense he is being charged with is not serious enough for impeachment and if he were removed from …show more content…
The people who did not support Clinton dismissed the argument that the American people voted for Clinton not once but twice. This is shown here “Supporters of impeachment also discounted arguments by Clinton's defenders that removing Clinton from office would overturn the will of the electorate, who twice had chosen him to be president” (Clinton Impeachment). Despite the bad image Clinton received, he still had a high approval rating from the American people. Another argument made to impeach Clinton was that just because something is popular does not mean that it is right. Representative J.C. Watts expressed this when he said “What's popular isn't always right, I say we must draw a line from right and wrong” (Clinton Impeachment). The supporters of the impeachment believed that the only way to be fair and show that no one is above the law is to impeach Clinton. The last argument the supporters made was that the people could no longer trust Clinton to keep his word in vital policy
The impeachment of President Clinton is something that will be remembered forever. Along with the fact that a presidential impeachment has only happened one other time since the Civil War, the publicity that came with the Clinton trial was extensive (Miller 2004). While the Republican and Democratic members of the House of Representatives had vastly different views on impeaching President Clinton, the fact that only five Democratic Representatives voted to impeach him truly shows how wide that gap was between the two parties. Clinton was impeached on the grounds of perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice, with the vote on both articles extremely close, a 228-206 vote on perjury to a
President Bill Clinton began an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern, in 1995. Later in 1998, when confronted with questions in regards to an affair with Monica Lewinsky, Clinton lied under oath in front of a grand jury. This, however, was not his first lapse in judgment as viewed by the Senate and Congress. The President and his wife, Hillary, found themselves involved in the Whitewater scandal beginning in 1978. In addition, during his campaign, Clinton was accused of draft dodging and rumors were spread in regards to his possible marriage infidelity. President Bill Clinton continued to find himself caught in the middle of scandals involving: Whitewater, Paula Jones, and most notably, Monica Lewinsky. The way Clinton handled
The government of the United States controls countless affairs in the world. They control everything from the currency to the court systems. Individuals are suppose to be able to trusting your government system, which has not been the case in many different circumstances. From Richard Nixon to the Whitewater scandal, the government has been everything but honest.
The reason why he faced impeachment is because in November 1995, Clinton began an affair with Monica Lewinsky, she was a 21 year old unpaid intern. In April 1996, Lewinsky was transferred to the Pentagon. In the summer, Monica confided in Pentagon co-worker Linda Tripp about her relationship with the president. In 1997, the relationship was over, Linda began to secretly record conversations with Lewinsky, so she would get details about the affair. In December, lawyers for Paula Jones brought Monica. In January 1998, allegedly under the recommendation of the president, Monica denied having a relationship with the president. Five days later, Linda contacted the office of Kenneth Starr, the Whitewater counsel, to talk about Monica and the tapes she made of their conversations. Linda, who was wired by FBI agents, met with Monica again and Monica was taken by FBI agents and U.S. attorneys to a hotel room where she was questioned and was offered immunity if she cooperated. Few days later, the story was out and Clinton denied the allegations saying, “I did not have a relationship with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.” Clinton spoke a live television to a grand jury in a nearby federal courthouse. He was the first sitting president to testify before a grand jury investigating his conduct. Clinton gave a four minute televised address to the nation which he admitted he had a relationship with Lewinsky. On December 11th, the House Judiciary Committee
James Madison, in writing the US Constitution in 1787, intended that the system of checks and balances would separate the powers of the government branches and counter a “tyranny of the majority”. He carefully sought to distribute powers in a way that prevents any one faction from dominating. Under this system, the President can appoint federal judges, grant pardons, veto bills, propose laws, reject part of bills, etc. Equally, the Congress can override presidential veto, impeach the President, ratify treaties, etc., and the Courts can declare laws and executive orders unconstitutional. The contemporary system of checks and balances isn’t working as Madison intended as illustrated by the impeachment of President Clinton, the government
Impeachment is the act of bringing charges to someone that challenges their integrity and or validity. People in high authority with the government can be impeached for bribery, treason, other high crimes, or even misdemeanors. The House is given the power to impeach a person but it requires a majority vote. Then the Senate has the right to try the person that the charges are being brought on but for this to happen they need a ⅔ vote. This process has happened only twice in American history; once with Andrew Jackson and once
Bill Clinton did many things to improve the nation, for example, diversifying the Administration by appointing more minorities and women to cabinet posts and federal judgeships. Unfortunately, the way Bill handled himself in both the Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky case overshadowed his good presidential acts. Clinton committed perjury, obstructed justice and tampered with witnesses, that is not a man who should have remained in office as the leader of the free world. Bill Clinton’s acts were inexcusable and inadmissible and should have led to a conviction. “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”- Elie Wiesel. Unfortunately in the case of Bill Clinton, the members of the Senate had the power to prevent injustice and the power to protest and they had the opportunity to convict a guilty man, but instead, they allowed him to walk
When I heard about the riot and massacre that had occurred in Clinton one hundred years ago, I was left in complete shock. I had never before heard about these events. They weren’t told in my history classes. We never covered them whenever we talked about events that happened in Mississippi. So, when Thursday came and I sat and heard about what had happened I was left intrigue and wanting to know more.The event started off with former Mayor Walter Howell, who is the official historian of Clinton, telling an account of what had happened. He paraphrased the history of things, yet, he left things accurate and precise.
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman." was one of Bill Clinton’s famous political one-liners. In the past decade, many people have made it their mission to prosecute Democratic President William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton for committing real estate fraud known as the Whitewater scandal and his involvement in numerous illicit sex scandals like the Paula Jones lawsuit and the Monica Lewinsky lawsuit to name a few. The significance of the Whitewater trials and the impeachment of the president is that it served as an example for future presidents and assured the people that the president is subjected to the law, not above it. If he
This assignment asks us to compare and contrast the impeachment proceedings of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and William Clinton, while identifying the ethical dilemmas presented by each. In addition, students are to categorize the ethical violations of each President by severity and discuss whether the actions by the Senate were politically motivated or ethical.
The governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, was the first Democratic candidate in the election of 1992, becoming the first Democratic president since 1976. He was the president number 42 and occupied two presidential period between 1993 to 2000. When he was nominated to the presidency in 1992 by the Democratic party, Clinton centered his campaign in creating jobs, focusing on the image that is close to ordinary people because he does not come from an elite of millionaires like his challenger George W. Bush. Clinton was favored with the career of three rivals counting Ross Perot. In fact, he won with the 43 percent of the votes, while Bush won only with the 37 percent. Consequently, the Democrats retained their majority in both chambers of government. Bush, acting as President in functions, proceeded to sending 20.000 American soldiers to Somalia under the auspices of the ONU to keep the peace and help to support the humanitarian aid. This action received the support of the President-elect Clinton, like the signing in January of 1993 of Start II Treaty related with the nuclear disarmament between Bush and the Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
Throughout this speech, several rhetorical devices are used, which make the speech more effective. Many people would agree that the most effective quote from this speech is “If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all” (Clinton par.26). This quote is a sententia, which was properly used because this statement is so powerful. Clinton uses a rhetorical question in her speech to increase the attention of her audience and emphasize how important this conference is in creating change for the future. Clinton states, “Wasn’t it after all -- after the women’s conference in Nairobi ten years ago that the world focused for the first
The extreme bias of the 1990's seemed to branch from Republicans’ feelings that Clinton represented everything conservatives hated about the 1960's. In college, Clinton smoked marijuana and participated in antiwar protests. He ended up marrying a feminist, leading a multicultural administration and supporting the gay rights movement. Opponents of Clinton and the media waited in the shadows for chances to assail him and he provided.
President Clinton was a man entangled in his own ruins. He went from one lie to another and eventually was so caught up in them, that he was trapped. These lies brought on his downfall as a great leader. He was flawed like everyone, yet being a representative of the people, you need to keep these flaws hidden so that weakness is not shown. His failings were revealed to the whole world and his pride and integrity fell with them. The world no longer saw a leader, but a broken man. This was his ultimate failure. However, another big failure Clinton had while in office was his failure to
There was an issue in 1998 that involved personal indiscretions with a young woman White House intern, which cause Bill to be the second U.S. President to be impeached by the House of Representatives.