President Bill Clinton Impeachment :: William Jefferson Clinton Essays

Interview: Views on Clinton’s Impeachment The impeachment of Bill Clinton is one of the “weirdest episodes'; in our political history. He is the only elected President of the United States ever to be resulted in the passage of impeachment (Johnson was not elected, Nixon resigned to prevent impeachment). The reason for his impeachment is that he lied under the oath during the testimony in the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit, and to grand jury during Monica Lewinsky investigation. He even abused power and lied to the Congress in an attempt to cover up a series of indiscretions, which resulted in the passage of four articles of impeachment. These incidents later turned out to be a political soap opera and ended with Clinton’s presidency preserved, but it is a soap opera that many believed it could be prevent from happening. Clinton’s impeachment made headlines news across the nation ever since it was revealed to the public. Unfortunately, many people still have a long way to know what went on behind the close door of the impeachment. The majority do not have an idea if the Congress is making the right move or not to impeach our President. Hence, many do not realize how the impeachment might affect our nation politically. To answer this, I conducted an interview with my high school physics instructor, Mr. Arnold Burkert. I interviewed him as a person who strongly dislikes the notion of Clinton’s impeachment. My goal of this interview was to write a paper about the impeachment by using public opinion and attitude toward one of the “weirdest episodes'; in our political history. As a supplement to this interview and to write this paper, news magazine articles related to this assignment were also used as in a supporting role. The first remark my instructor made in this interview was that the Congress had made a bad judgement to pass the impeachment. He reasoned that Clinton managed a healthy economy and gained strong approval in the national polls. He believes Clinton’s offenses were personal and minor. Although his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky was reckless behavior, the Constitution doesn’t have anything that says one should be impeached for reckless conduct. The Constitution can only impeach President Clinton if he commits treason, bribery, high crimes, and misdemeanors. Therefore, he believed Clinton’s impropriety is not related to the Congress or even us, the people, which means his faulty action is not impeachable according to the rules of the Constitution.