On January 7, 1999, the impeachment trial of President
Bill Clinton, formally charged with lying under oath and
obstructing justice, began in the Senate.

As instructed in Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution,
Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist was
sworn in to preside, and the senators were sworn in
as jurors.

Congress had only attempted to remove a president on
one other occasion: the 1868 impeachment trial of
President Andrew Johnson, who incurred the Republican
Party’s wrath after he had proposed a conservative
Reconstruction plan.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist (top left) swearing in senators.

February 12, 1999.

                        
TIM MAGUIRE

1959

For the first time in U.S. history, the House of Representatives
exercised its constitutional power of impeachment and votes
to charge Senator William Blount of Tennessee with “a high misdemeanor, entirely inconsistent with his public duty and
trust as a Senator.”

The constitutional conundrum of conducting a trial of an
impeached senator has not yet been resolved.

vowed to finish his term.

After nearly 14 hours of debate, the House of Representatives
approved two articles of impeachment against President Bill
Clinton, charging him with lying under oath to a federal grand
jury and obstructing justice.

On August 17, 1998, President Bill Clinton became the first
sitting president to testify before the Office of Independent
Counsel as the subject of a grand-jury investigation.

The testimony came after a four-year investigation into
Clinton and his wife Hillary’s alleged involvement in several
scandals, including accusations of sexual harassment,
potentially illegal real-estate deals and suspected “cronyism”
involved in the firing of White House travel-agency personnel.

The independent prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, then uncovered
an affair between Clinton and a White House intern named
Monica Lewinsky.

When questioned about the affair, Clinton denied it, which
led Starr to charge the president with perjury and obstruction
of justice, which in turn prompted his testimony on August 17.

HISTORY Channel[email protected]

