# During the Clinton impeachment, did many people truly believe he would be removed from office? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 23, 2019, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266 "2019-12-23T01:30:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2019, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/41 "2019-12-27T22:55:15Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > Time travel back to 1992, and GOP voters not only see their establishment guy beaten like a rented goalie, but the guy beating him is a smooth-talking philanderer and accused sexual assaulter. \*Those Democrats will back anyone so long as it gets them power – they’re utterly amoral and their policy proposals must be, too! \* Yes… and crucially, “therefore we are justified in doing the same thing”. I have to think Republicans were more gleeful than solemn in that particular reflection. This was the beginning of “How You Got Trump”. > [@](#): > > No wonder Limbaugh and Gingrich found an audience. Reagan ditching the Fairness Doctrine was a big part of that. But yes, Clinton was the gangrene bacterium that landed in that open wound. Just such a comically easy outrage target. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2019, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/42 "2019-12-28T02:16:48Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Reagan ditching the Fairness Doctrine was a big part of that. But yes, Clinton was the gangrene bacterium that landed in that open wound. Just such a comically easy outrage target. Horse puckey. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2019, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/43 "2019-12-28T03:24:17Z")
Which part(s)? ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2019, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/44 "2019-12-28T12:16:52Z")
a lot of GOP members did not want Gore to run as the incumbent so they were not too upset Clinton stayed in office. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2019, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/45 "2019-12-28T14:28:56Z")
I was covering Impeachment during the Clinton years. No one thought he’d be removed going into it. No one I knew in the press corps, no one on the Hill, no one except some real hardcore true believers. Hell, you couldn’t even get a bet on it and you can generally get a bet in the press corps on anything. Remember, Impeachment ended disastrously for the Republicans. It cost Gingrich and Livingstone their seats, wounded Hyde and promoted chaos in their ranks for a solid year. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/46 "2019-12-29T03:39:28Z")
> [@glowacks](#): > > Perjury is a crime. But it is not a “high crime” if it does not relate to the affairs of state. Crimes that one can commit only because of their position of power are what impeachment was intended for. So if the President shot and killed a business rival on 5th Avenue, using his own pistol that he bought before he was president, that’s not an impeachable offence? ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/47 "2019-12-29T04:06:01Z")
High crimes has no definition in law. Very convenient, and probably not accidental. Keep in mind fair plurality of the actual framers of the constitution were already subject to criminal prosecution before they sat down. The phrase “and misdemeanors” is unmodified. It could mean high misdemeanors, also undefined, or shoplifting, or public lewdness. The whole point of the articles is If you piss off a majority of the House, and two thirds of the Senate, you’re toast. That’s never happened. Nixon would never have been actually removed from office. But he lacked the grit to listen to the testimony, all of which was going to be true. Clinton committed multiple acts of perjury, as defined in law. He wasn’t actually at risk of being removed from office, even though he was actually guilty of what has to be considered a high crime. If the Democrats take two thirds of the Senate, and keep half the house, they can impeach, and remove him for failure to pay taxes, whether it’s true or not. Or for being cruel to animals. Truth, and Justice are not elements of the American Way in this matter. Oddly, the Chief Justice of the Unite States could bang his gavel and call every single witness out of order, and dismiss any sort of charge for whatever trumped up reason he could come up with. Presiding judges have a lot of power during a trial. The duration of actions needed to correct any legal irregularity are greater than the remainder of the term. President Donald Trump is a fair and accurate representative of the ethical standards of the Republican Party. They chose him because he is their best and brightest. They want the things he wants. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/48 "2019-12-29T09:02:42Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > So if the President shot and killed a business rival on 5th Avenue, using his own pistol that he bought before he was president, that’s not an impeachable offence? I think it absolutely would be. However, I concede that the founding fathers never contemplated that anyone who won the electoral college would be of such low character to commit common law felonies. Like many things, the Constitution wasn’t made to contemplate (hopefully) absurd hypotheticals. But if it came to happen, there is a mechanism to stop it. > [@Triskadecamus](#): > > High crimes has no definition in law. Very convenient, and probably not accidental. Keep in mind fair plurality of the actual framers of the constitution were already subject to criminal prosecution before they sat down. > > The phrase “and misdemeanors” is unmodified. It could mean high misdemeanors, also undefined, or shoplifting, or public lewdness. The whole point of the articles is If you piss off a majority of the House, and two thirds of the Senate, you’re toast. That’s never happened. > > Nixon would never have been actually removed from office. But he lacked the grit to listen to the testimony, all of which was going to be true. Clinton committed multiple acts of perjury, as defined in law. He wasn’t actually at risk of being removed from office, even though he was actually guilty of what has to be considered a high crime. > > If the Democrats take two thirds of the Senate, and keep half the house, they can impeach, and remove him for failure to pay taxes, whether it’s true or not. Or for being cruel to animals. Truth, and Justice are not elements of the American Way in this matter. Oddly, the Chief Justice of the Unite States could bang his gavel and call every single witness out of order, and dismiss any sort of charge for whatever trumped up reason he could come up with. Presiding judges have a lot of power during a trial. The duration of actions needed to correct any legal irregularity are greater than the remainder of the term. 1. Sure, it is a truism that impeachment can be for anything a majority of the House thinks it is, but the real answer is deeper. This feeling was put forward by Gerald Ford, but the real question should be something like, “If I was a member of the House, what should be my criteria for impeachment?” 2. Nixon was toast. That’s why the famous incident of the GOP Senators going to the oval office to tell him he was toast caused his to resign. Goldwater told him he might get 15 votes. 3. As noted in the other thread, the Chief Justice presides only to maintain order. Anything he does can be immediately overruled by 51 votes. His power to preside is similar to the power of the chairman at your local Rotary Club meeting. He does not act with dictatorial power. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/49 "2019-12-29T13:30:18Z")
To answer the OP I was 31 when Clinton was impeached. Although I was not happy about what he did I didn’t even follow the procedures closely. It was guaranteed that he was not going to be removed and everyone knew that. Maybe with the current type of news cycle they would have been able to hype it better but at the time it wasn’t very interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2020, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/50 "2020-01-07T16:21:52Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I don’t remember anyone seriously thinking he’d be removed either, but let me correct the record: Clinton was NOT impeached for ‘lying about a blowjob’'. He was impeached for perjuring himself in a civil lawsuit, an action that he was also disbarred for, and for suborning perjury (attempting to get Monica Lewinsky to sign an affidavit that they had never had sexual relations, for use in his civil trial against Paula Jones, among other things). > > The judge in that case hit him with contempt of court for repeated misleading or false testimony, and fined him $90,000. He also agreed to have his law license suspended for five years in a bargain to keep himself from being charged with a felony for perjury. > > I think the impeachment was a bad idea, mainly because removing a president is such a big deal that it should only be done with bipartisan support and strong public opinion for removal. But that doesn’t mean Clinton was innocent or that the serious charges against him were nothing more than ‘lying about a blowjob’. He lied to a judge in court to thwart a lawsuit from a woman accusing him of sexual assault. That’s a big deal. I agree with most of this, but for two exceptions: neither bipartisan support nor strong public opinion should be a requirement for impeachment. You need look no further than the Trump impeachment to see what lengths one side will go to justify not even considering listening to what may come out in a Senate trial. One can argue over whether or not the facts as we know them about Trump/Ukraine is impeachable and worthy of throwing the president out, but I don’t see how you can decide that without actually listening to evidence. In this case, it comes down to partisanship, and that is bullshit. As for public opinion, our representatives take an oath to defend the constitution, and nowhere in that oath does it say they should consult the public first. As practical matter I suppose it makes sense, and in most cases hopefully the public would be in line with ousting a president for something obviously rising to the necessary level. But what if the public isn’t? Then, it’s up to those representatives to step in. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266.md?page=2)