The Daily - What Trump Learned From Clinton’s Impeachment

Episode Date: May 29, 2018

Twenty years ago, President Bill Clinton survived impeachment after casting himself as the target of partisan motives. What lessons has President Trump gleaned from that strategy? Guest: Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, who covered the investigation and impeachment of Mr. Clinton. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. 20 years ago, President Clinton survived impeachment by convincing the country he was the victim of a witch hunt. What President Trump has learned from that strategy. what President Trump has learned from that strategy. It's Tuesday, May 29th.

President Clinton said today he is very pleased with his first year in office, but not a bit happy about how it's ending, under a cloud of controversy over his personal life and business dealings. In 1994, questions were raised about a land deal that President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton had been involved with back when he was governor of Arkansas. Peter Baker is chief White House correspondent for The Times. A land deal known as the Whitewater deal. The tangled relationship between an Arkansas land deal, a savings and loan, and Hillary Rodham Clinton's former law firm is again under scrutiny today. That led to the appointment of an independent counsel, Ken Starr. Also 1994, the scene was the Excelsior Hotel. She and a co-worker were holding down the registration desk on the second floor. When she says that afternoon about 2 30, Mr.

Clinton's bodyguard, state trooper Danny Ferguson, spoke to her. A former Arkansas State employee named Paula Jones filed a lawsuit against President Clinton alleging sexual harassment. And he told me that he used the word veal, would like to meet with you up in this room number. And my response was, well, why does he want to see me? And Mr. Ferguson said, it's okay, we do this all the time. President Clinton was accused of having requested oral sex from her in a hotel room, dropping his pants. I was just shocked.

I jumped up and I said, no, I'm not this kind of girl. I'm not that kind of girl. And he said, well, I don't want to make you do something you don't want to do. And she was trying to prove that this is part of a pattern. And her lawyers were allowed by a court to ask President Clinton about encounters with other women in possibly similar circumstances. One of these women was Monica Lewinsky. We're told by sources that she would frequently come into the West Wing of the White House, where the Oval Office is, late at night, even as late as midnight. Now, at issue is whether the intern had a sexual relationship with the president,

something the Jones team wants to prove as part of its sexual harassment case. What was not clear in 1994 was how these two events would eventually intersect. Potentially, damaging cloud is hanging over the White House this morning. CNN has confirmed that Whitewater counsel Kenneth Starr has been granted permission to expand his investigation. He will be looking into new allegations that President Clinton had an affair with a former White House intern and then urged her to lie about it. What happens is this. The nexus is whether anybody was trying to obstruct justice in the Paula Jones lawsuit

by convincing Monica Lewinsky not to testify truthfully. In other words, were they trying to offer her job or other incentives trying to convince her to commit perjury herself? That's the nexus with the Whitewater case where there was also allegations of witness tampering and obstruction of justice. So this becomes a question of whether or not the president or people around him tried to obstruct justice as it related to Monica Lewinsky. Exactly. The actual investigation was not whether or not he had a sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Nothing was illegal about that per se. What they were looking at was whether he was committing perjury and obstructing justice in a civil lawsuit. So how does President Clinton respond to this mushrooming investigation? Well, when he's questioned by Paula Jones's lawyers, he immediately denies having had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, and he denied ever having been alone with her. Then when the story came out a few days after the deposition, he denied it again on television to the American public. But I want to say one thing to the American people. 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. Hillary Clinton went on television. She also repeated the denial and said that what was going on here was really a plot by a vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president. And that becomes the Clinton strategy, to deny the allegations and to discredit the investigation as just a partisan witch hunt.

It's just a very unfortunate turn of events that we are using the criminal justice system to try to achieve political ends in this country. And, you know, when I'm here today, I'm not only here because I love and believe my husband. I'm also here because I love and believe in my country. And if I were just a citizen out there, I would be very disturbed by this turn of events. And what's the benefit to the Clintons of making this investigation seem as politically motivated as possible?

So here's the thing. as possible. So here's the thing. What we learned from Watergate was the only way a president can be forced out of office is if there's a bipartisan consensus. So the danger for President Clinton was if Democrats agreed with Republicans that his conduct had been inappropriate and rose the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. So the most important thing for Clinton was to keep Democrats on board. The way to keep Democrats on board was to convince the American public that this is nothing more than a partisan witch hunt. It's almost a form of McCarthyism, if you will. If you turn on the television during this period, you'd see advisors of the president. The reason that Ken Starr is delaying and delaying and delaying and using some of the

Gestapo police state tactics that he's using is because he can't make that case of obstruction. Attacking the independent counsel, attacking Ken Starr. The doubt and the cloud raised over the office of the independent counsel is all done because of the actions taken by Ken Starr. And it is those actions that have raised real doubts and real concern about the independence of that office and about what is the motivation and whether it's more political than it need be. You had Democrats on the Hill

accusing the Republicans of supporting a star witch hunt. The Republicans in the House are paralyzed with hatred of President Clinton. And until the Republicans free themselves of this hatred, our country will suffer. And the point was to find every way possible to make sure the public saw this only through a red-blue kind of lens. Mr. Speaker, Republicans, put your country before your party.

So then what happens in the actual investigation? Well, Ken Starr's prosecutors and the FBI agents working for them spend the next few months trying to prove whether or not the president has lied under oath in denying his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and whether he tried to obstruct justice by finding a job for her or encouraging her to lie herself. Eventually, the key to this all, of course, becomes the famous blue dress, which has, let's say, forensic evidence on it of a relationship. And she cut a deal, ultimately, with the prosecutors to give testimony. At that point, the independent counsel was ready to try to interview President Clinton. So on August 17th, 1998, President Clinton goes to the map room of the White House to meet Ken

Starr for four hours of grand jury testimony that would be beamed back to the courthouse through closed circuit television. And the president starts off by saying, I had the statement to read in which he makes sort of an admission that he had not been fully forthcoming about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Indeed, he said he did have a relationship with her, an intimate relationship with her that was not appropriate. But he argued that he did not actually lie under oath because he had a different definition of sexual relations than other people

might have had regarding what they had actually done. Now, none of this was shown live. So the president coming out of this grand jury testimony had to decide what he was going to tell the American people. And he gave a speech that night. that lasted four minutes on television. 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. The first part of it, he admitted his intimate contact with Monica Lewinsky. He apologized for his misbehavior on it. Indeed, I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky that was not appropriate.

In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part, for which I am solely and completely responsible. But then he spent the last two minutes attacking Ken Starr, saying this was an inappropriate intrusion in his private life, it was destroying people's lives, and it had to stop. It is time to stop the pursuit of personal destruction and the prying into private lives

and get on with our national life. Our country has been distracted by this matter for too long, and I take my responsibility for my part in all of this. That is all I can do. Now it is time, in fact, it is past time to move on. And that anger that came through in that speech was what defined that moment. So then what happens? What does Ken Starr do?

Ken Starr delivers a report and 36 boxes worth of evidence to Congress in September of 1998, saying he had found 11 impeachable offenses. Congress at that point, the House of Representatives, votes to open an impeachment investigation. For the Democrats, the key here is trying to make sure that this comes across as nothing but a partisan exercise. So along the way, as they have votes on a variety of different parts of the process, the Democrats are intent on making sure their party line votes. At one point, they have votes on a variety of different parts of the process. The Democrats are intent on making sure they're party line votes.

At one point, they're voting on what parts of the evidence to release to the public. And the two sides found themselves actually agreeing too much. Too much. Too much. As far as the Democrats are concerned, they call a break. They huddled and said, we have to have some more party line votes in order to show that this is illegitimate. They've come forward with a whole bunch more motions that they know will be voted down specifically to try to make sure this is

seen entirely through a Democrat Republican lens. They had a strategy for it. They called it win by losing. You may lose all these votes, but you win by characterizing the whole exercise as a party line thing, a partisan thing. And as long as things remain partisan, the Republicans will never get the two thirds vote they need to push the president out in a Senate trial. On this midterm election day, voters are selecting their representatives for the 106th session of Congress. Tonight on C-SPAN, Campaign 98 results. Even as all this is going on, there's an election coming, a midterm congressional election. And impeachment increasingly, of course, becomes the dominant issue.

Republicans think they're going to win on it. They think the scandal is going to cost the Democrats. Even on the morning of the election, they thought they were going to pick up 20 or 25 seats in the House. What happens, though, is the public goes the other way. I think our lead is going to be the Democrats had a much better day than anybody would have expected a few weeks ago. And if they gain even a couple of seats in the House, then they'll really be breaking historical precedent. So in the midterm elections, Democrats not only don't lose in the House, they actually pick up five seats. The public buys into this argument that Ken Starr and the Republicans are out for

partisan gain and they're attacking a president for illegitimate reasons. Doesn't mean the public like what President Clinton had done. Polls show they thought he was a bad husband. They thought he wasn't particularly honest, but they thought he was a good president. President Clinton thought that was the end of it. He thought that would make the Republicans give up on impeachment. What he didn't count on was the train was already heading down the tracks. And even though they had lost the midterms, Republicans kept going forward. The unfinished business is further consideration of House Resolution 611. So in December of 1998, the House of Representatives picks up four articles of impeachment against President Clinton,

alleging perjury, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power. impeachment against President Clinton, alleging perjury, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power. The House votes against two of them, but approves two other articles on pretty much party line votes. A resolution impeaching William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors. And with that, President Clinton became only the second president in American history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. From there, the question goes to the Senate, but the Republicans at this point don't have enough votes. So after a six-week trial that includes testimony from Monica Lewinsky, ultimately the two articles of impeachment are not approved by the Senate, and President Clinton is acquitted. The Senate, having tried William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United States, upon

two articles of impeachment exhibited against him by the House of Representatives, and two-thirds of the senators present not having found him guilty of the charges contained therein, it is therefore ordered and adjudged that the said William Jefferson Clinton be, and he hereby is, acquitted of the charges in the said articles. It showed the President Clinton strategy ultimately worked because it kept Democrats on board. They saw what happened in the election. They saw that there wasn't a groundswell among the public for removing a two-term president on these charges. And Democrats stuck with him.

As long as Democrats stuck with him, he was going to win, and he did. I want to say again to the American people how profoundly sorry I am for what I said and did to trigger these events and the great burden they have imposed on the Congress and on the American people. I also am humbled and very grateful for the support and the prayers I have received from millions of Americans over this past year. Now I ask all Americans, and I hope all Americans, here in Washington and throughout our land, we'll rededicate ourselves to the work of serving our nation and building our future together. We'll be right back.

Peter, it's interesting that in 1998, impeachment happened in the midst of a major midterm election. And now here we are, 20 years later, with a midterm election looming and a special counsel investigation of the president of the United States. The parallels here seem pretty striking. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, obviously the issues are different. The characters are different. But for those of us who were covering this in 1998, it's hard not to hear some of the echoes of what we went through then.

It's a disgraceful situation. It's a total witch hunt. I've been saying it for a long time. The entire thing has been a witch hunt, and there is no collusion between certainly myself and my campaign. A president who is trying to focus the attention on the conduct of the investigators, trying to say this is a partisan witch hunt. The message now everyone knows it's a fix, okay? It's a witch hunt. And they know that, and I've been able to message it. Trump's newest lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, now also in the tent to amplify the narrative. The president is completely innocent, and he is absolutely right.

If you want to get insulted, you get insulted, but it's a damn witch hunt. I have this witch hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now. The issue is not what I did as the president. The issue is what they're doing in pursuing me. Trump tweeted, why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big crooked Hillary supporters and zero Republicans? Once again, you see allies in Congress coming to the aid of the president, echoing his message that the prosecution is illegitimate.

You know, when we go back and look at it, it was based on basically gossip. It did not come through normal channels. So this all is a very shameful chapter in the history of the FBI. It very much, whether he intends it or not, is mimicking some of the strategy that President Clinton and his supporters used 20 years ago. The difference is, of course, that President Trump has a Republican House on his side. In other words, controlled by his own party. President Clinton had the opposition party in control of the House in 1998. So that gives President Trump an additional advantage. And how is the special counsel investigation of President Trump playing into the upcoming midterms? And is it similar to how it played out back in 1998?

It is similar in some ways. With the midterms coming up, there are new questions swirling around what Bob Mueller will do about any new charges or a potential public report as the election day approaches. You already see members of both parties bringing up impeachment as a major issue for the fall election. Republicans are warning their base, look, they're coming after our president. You need to vote for more Republicans to defend him. Mueller, Pelosi, Donnelly, they're using fake news to destroy our president. Who's tough enough to stop the witch hunt? Democrats are saying if you want to hold this president accountable, you have to give us more seats because we need to have control of the House of Representatives. I will not be silent. I will not be silenced. I will speak up and speak out.

And there will be articles of impeachment brought before the House of Representatives. So both sides of Congress right now, Democrat and Republican, very much have the idea of impeachment on their mind. And I wonder what lessons you think members of Congress have learned from the experience of the Clinton impeachment? Well, the lesson for the Democrats or for anybody, in fact, talking about impeachment is that it won't work unless it's bipartisan, that the country has to have something of a consensus. Otherwise, it just becomes yet another party fight. And what Nancy Pelosi understands at this point is that there are not Republicans who are willing to go along with this. And so it's a dangerous thing to put the Democratic Party, in her view, on the path toward another party line kind of impeachment. Impeachment is, to me, divisive. If the facts are there, then this would have to be bipartisan to go forward. But if it is viewed as partisan,

it will divide the country. And I just don't think that that's what we should do. Unless evidence develops, unless Robert Mueller comes back with something so powerful that it shakes Republicans, that might change the dynamic. But where things are today, Democrats are looking at the experience of 20 years ago

and worried about repeating what happened to Republicans. From everything you're saying, Peter, it sounds like the Democrats' strategy during the Clinton era is, in a sense, coming back to haunt them today. This model of demonize the special counsel, make this seem as partisan as possible. counsel, make this seem as partisan as possible. It was effective then, and now it seems like it could be just as effective on the other side. Yeah, there's sort of a role reversal going on here. The Democrats now are on the other side, and they see how effective it is when a president and his supporters try to go after the investigators to make the conduct of the pursuers the issue rather than his own conduct. But what might change things and what we should be watching for is what will happen in the

fall. If the Republicans do lose control of the House, does that change the political atmosphere in which a possible impeachment might be considered? If Republicans look at President Trump and think he is bringing us all down, that might change the way they evaluate the politics of a possible impeachment effort. So you're saying that the midterms could mean a majority for Democrats, and perhaps just as crucially, it could change how Republicans feel about the president. They may read a Democratic victory as a sign that the country is losing its faith in the president and they might potentially be more open-minded about working with Democrats on something like impeachment? That's right, exactly. For an impeachment to succeed, it's not just that Democrats have to

win in the fall. It's that they have to change Republican minds because otherwise they're just heading down the same path that the Republicans had to had down in 1998. So to win a majority in the House for Democrats would also have to be accompanied by a sense on the part of Republicans that President Trump is now a liability and that they lose more by sticking with him than the other way around. It strikes me how much both the Clinton and the Trump investigations and how they have played out in Congress is really about politics and perceptions and shaping opinion, not about the actual facts of the investigation. Yeah, no, that's true. Look, impeachment has the veneer of a legal process because we use the phrase high crimes and misdemeanors in the Constitution. But it is inherently a political process.

It is a political decision by an elected body, the House of Representatives, whether to impeach an elected president. So the facts do matter because the facts will shape perception. But ultimately, if there's not a political will for impeachment, that is an important thing. You wouldn't see that in a court of law, right? If a defendant is on trial, the facts are going to govern a lot more than they will in an impeachment process. But, you know, here we are a defendant is on trial, the facts are going to govern a lot more than they will in an impeachment process. But, you know, here we are more than 200 years later, we're still trying even to define what high crimes and misdemeanors mean. And Gerald Ford most memorably put it that high crimes and misdemeanors means whatever a majority of the House of Representatives says

it means. And of course, majority of the House of Representatives will decide that based on what they think the country wants. And so that's why elections matter. And that's why this is a democratic process that depends on what voters think. Thank you, Peter. Thank you. Thank you. Here's what else you need to know today. Mr. President, this is something that's been a long. We're going to see what happens. We're talking to them now.

It was a very nice statement they put out. We'll see what happens. Days after abruptly canceling his summit with Kim Jong-un, President Trump says that the meeting, scheduled for June 12th, may be back on. We'll see what happens. It could even be the 12th. We're talking to them now. They very much want to do it. We'd like to do it. We're going to see what happens. With just days to prepare for the meeting, the U.S. has sent a team of diplomats to North Korea

to seek a commitment that Kim will abandon his nuclear weapons program, something he has resisted doing. In a tweet over the weekend, Trump wrote, quote, I truly believe North Korea has brilliant potential and will be a great economic and financial nation one day. Kim Jong-un agrees with me on this. It will happen. And votes in favor of the proposal, 1,429,981. In a historic referendum, Ireland voted overwhelmingly to reverse a nationwide ban on abortion. For decades, Irish women seeking to end their pregnancies have either travelled abroad or bought pills online illegally,

risking a 14-year jail sentence. This is a monumental day for women in Ireland. This is about women taking their rightful place in Irish society, finally. And there is no going back. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.