Sunday, November 19, 2017

Why wasn't Bill Clinton removed from office?

Monica Lewinsky

Bill Clinton should have resigned but didn't. 

Therefore, the Senate should have removed him from office after his impeachment by the House of Representatives for lying.

He used his power as president to seduce his young intern Monica.  That was not appropriate behavior.

Thank you to Kirsten Gillibrand and Barbara Ehrenreich for coming out this week against the general amnesty he received in spite of his sexual misconduct.  (Barbara was public in her denunciation of him in 1998.)

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/17/kirsten-gillibrand-bill-clinton-democrats-247427

In the late 1997-99, I was disgusted by Bill's behavior.  I resented his exposing my teenage daughters to the salacious reports in the news every day.

I was angry to see Eleanor Smeal, the National Organization for Women, and 55 senators give Bill Clinton a pass on his behavior.

And why did Lewinsky's superiors transfer her away from the White House in April 1996, without reporting that there was a problem? After all, they knew that "she was spending too much time around the president." 

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/02/12/senate.vote/

Senators who voted "not guilty" include Barbara Boxer, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Patty Murray, Barbara Mikulski, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lambert Lincoln, Joe Biden, Evan Bayh, Tom Daschle, John Edwards (we know why), Ted Kennedy (same reason), Arlen Spector, Charles Schumer, Daniel Moynihan, and others.

Voting guilty were Kay Bailey Hutchison, Connie Mack, John McCain, Jeff Sessions, and others.

I am grateful that now in November 2017 Senator Gillibrand and a few other Democrats are convinced that Bill Clinton should have been held responsible for his behavior.

I didn't understand why Hillary Rodham Clinton stuck with Bill after his betrayal.  Gradually her gamble became clear: she was planning to use him as a prop for her campaign for senator and then for president.  

It made sense that his popularity would help Hillary to be elected--but in the long run, his popularity waned.  A lot of people hated him more than they hated Hillary.

He became a weight dragging down her chances of getting elected. 

His hubris was one of the many factors that led to her defeat on November 8, 2016.  

From Wikipedia:
All of the Democrats in the Senate voted for acquittal on both the perjury and the obstruction of justice charges. Ten Republicans voted for acquittal for perjury: John Chafee (Rhode Island), Susan Collins (Maine), Slade Gorton (Washington), Jim Jeffords (Vermont), Richard Shelby (Alabama), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania), Ted Stevens (Alaska), Fred Thompson (Tennessee), and John Warner (Virginia). Five Republicans voted for acquittal for obstruction of justice: Chafee, Collins, Jeffords, Snowe, and Specter.
President Clinton was thereby acquitted of all charges and remained in office. There were attempts to censure the president by the House of Representatives, but those attempts failed.

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