MA American Studies 2nd year Course: American Presidency Course Instructor: Associate Professor Octavian Roske December 13,

2013

Week 12: Presidential Scandals: The Monica Lewinsky Affair Statement by Senator John McCain, February 12, 1999

Presenters: Laura Picioru - Part 1 (Biography) Andreea Ttru - Part 2 (Context) Irina Angelescu Part 3 (Textual Analysis)
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Part 1 Laura Picioru Information about John McCain and the extent of his involvement in the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton John Sidney McCain III - born August 29, 1936, in Panama. Both McCain's father and paternal grandfather were four-star admirals. John S. McCain Jr. followed in their steps and rose to command all U.S. naval forces in the Pacific. McCain graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1958. He also graduated from flight school in 1960. When the Vietnam War started, McCain volunteered for combat duty and began flying carrier-based attack planes on low-altitude bombing runs against the North Vietnamese. On October 26, 1967, during his 23rd air mission, McCain's plane was shot down during a bombing run over the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. He broke both arms and one leg during the ensuing crash. McCain was moved to Hoa Loa prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton," on December 9, 1969. McCain eventually spent five and a half years in various prison camps, three and a half of those in solitary confinement. He was released on March 14, 1973. McCain's introduction to politics came in 1976, when he was assigned as the Navy's liaison to the U.S. Senate. While working in public relations for his father-in-law's beer distribution business, he began establishing connections in politics. McCain was first elected to political office on November 2, 1982, easily winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives .He was re-elected in 1984. McCain was a loyal supporter of the Reagan administration and found his place among other conservative politicians. In 1986 McCain won election to the U.S. Senate. Both in the House and the Senate, McCain earned a reputation as a conservative politician who was not afraid to question the ruling Republican orthodoxy. McCain won re-election to the Senate three times, each time with a solid majority. His reputation as a "maverick politician" with firm beliefs and a quick temper only increased, and many were impressed by his willingness to be extremely open with the public and the press. He emerged as a solid challenger to the frontrunner, Governor George W. Bush of Texas, for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000. Though McCain won most of the New England states, his large electoral deficit forced him to "suspend" his campaign indefinitely. On May 9, 2000, after holding out for two months, McCain formally endorsed Bush. With Bush limited to two terms, McCain officially entered the 2008 presidential race on April 25, 2007, during an announcement in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. However, McCain was defeated by Democrat Barack Obama in the 2008 election. He is now is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, winning re-election easily four times, most recently in 2010.
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 In the February 1999 Senate trial following the impeachment of then-president Bill Clinton, McCain voted to convict the president on both the perjury and obstruction of justice counts, saying Clinton had violated his sworn oath of office. Clinton was accused to have had sexual relations with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. The charges for perjury and obstruction of justice of which Clinton was accused, arose from an investigation by Independent Counsel Ken Starr. In the course of the investigation, Linda Tripp, a Pentagon employee and friend of Lewinsky, provided Starr with taped phone conversations in which Monica Lewinsky, a former White House Intern, discussed the extent of her relationship with Clinton. On September 9, 1998, Kenneth Starr's Office of Independent Counsel delivered its report on the Lewinsky investigation to the House of Representatives for consideration. Within the report were 11 counts of possible impeachable offenses allegedly committed by the President. Among those counts were charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power. Clinton's political party, the Democratic Party, was in the minority in both chambers of Congress. Some Democratic members of Congress, and most in the opposition Republican Party, believed that Clinton's giving false testimony and allegedly influencing Lewinsky's testimony were crimes of obstruction of justice and perjury and thus impeachable offenses. Although acquitted of those charges in February 1999, two months after the Senate failed to convict him, President Clinton was held in civil contempt of court. His license to practice law was suspended in Arkansas for five years and later by the United States Supreme Court. He was also fined $90,000 for giving false testimony.

Sources: http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/02/12/senate.vote/ http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/02/12/post.vote.reax/ http://www.mydd.com/users/ahiddensaint/posts/john-mccain-record-on-bill-clinton http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/clinton/clintontrialaccount.html http://www.biography.com/people/john-mccain-9542249 http://www.mydd.com/users/ahiddensaint/posts/john-mccain-record-on-bill-clinton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Bill_Clinton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/timeline.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Office_of_the_Independent_Counsel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Starr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Tripp http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war

Part 2 Andreea Ttru Context of the Monica Lewinsky Affair The relationship between President Clinton and the White House intern Monica Lewinsky started during President Clintons first term (from 1995 to 1997). There was a government shut-down in November 1995 and unpaid interns were taking on extra responsibility while non-essential staff was being sent home. Thus, Monica had the chance of spending quality time with the President. A later report describing these events states that:
During the shutdown, Ms. Lewinsky worked in Chief of Staff Panetta's West Wing office, where she answered phones and ran errands. The President came to Mr. Panetta's office frequently because of the shutdown, and he sometimes talked with Ms. Lewinsky. She characterized these encounters as continued flirtation. According to Ms. Lewinsky, a Senior Adviser to the Chief of Staff, Barry Toiv, remarked to her that she was getting a great deal of face time with the President.

Monica Lewinsky confided the details of her relationship with the President to Linda Tripp, her co-worker in the Defense Department, who started to secretly record their telephone conversations. In addition to this, Linda seems to have advised Monica to keep all the gifts she received from Clinton. At that time, the Paula Jones case which started in 1994 was in the spotlight a state employee decided to sue President Clinton for sexual harassment during his time as Governor of Arkansas; there was an out-of-court settlement because Jones failed to prove the damages. Paula Joness lawyers and spokesperson made use of the press to attack Clinton and tried to prove a pattern of behavior coming from the President, namely that he allegedly became sexually involved with government employees. Other women were suspected of having had affairs with President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky was among them. The lawyers tried to convince her to testify, but she signed an affidavit, claiming that she had no sexual relation with Clinton. During the depositions in the Jones lawsuit, Clinton actually mentioned Monica Lewinsky and denied having a sexual relationship with her (based on a definition of sexual relationship that excluded oral sex). At this point, Linda Tripp decided to deliver the conversations between Monica and the President to Kenneth Starr (the Independent Counsel investigating Clinton for other matters). The story concerning Clinton and Lewinsky broke in the mainstream press on January 21, 1998 in the Washington Post. A few days later, President Clinton spoke at the White House, offering a denial of those accusations: I did not have sexual relation with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false.. His wife stood by his side throughout the scandal. Only after a few months, did President Clinton admit his inappropriate relationship with the former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. He stated that: Indeed I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. The President hoped that a confession would have brought to an end the investigations into his affairs. In his Grand Jury Testimony, in September 1998, he further stated that:
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When I was alone with Ms. Lewinsky on certain occasions in early 1996, and once in early 1997, I engaged in conduct that was wrong. These encounters did not consist of sexual intercourse. They did not constitute sexual relations, as I understood that term to be defined at my January 17th, 1998 deposition. But they did involve inappropriate, intimate contact. These inappropriate encounters ended at my insistence in early 1997. I also had occasional telephone conversations with Ms. Lewinsky that included inappropriate sexual banter. I regret that what began as a friendship came to include this conduct. And I take full responsibility for my actions.

Based on the investigation conducted by Kenneth Starr, in December 1998, the House of Representatives voted to issue Articles of impeachment against President Clinton for having given false testimony and allegedly having influenced Lewinskys testimony thus obstruction of justice and perjury. A second charge of perjury and a charge of abuse of power failed in the House based on a party-line vote (Clinton had the support of the Democrats). This political sex scandal led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton (December 19, 1998). However, Polls taken that week suggested that the American public sided with Clinton, with 60% opposing impeachment. As a next stept in the impeachment action, a 21-day trial in the Senate followed the seating of the 106th Congress and 67 votes were required to convict and remove Clinton from office. During the trial, Senators met behind closed doors to consider their votes. Each senator was alloted fifteen minutes to make a statement. Nevertheless, 45 of the votes were for conviction for perjury and 55 were against, while in the case of the obstruction of justice charge the votes were 50 for and 50 against. Therefore, in February 1999, Clinton was acquitted of these impeachment charges. The following text will illustrate one of those statements delivered on February 12, 1999, belonging to Senator John McCain who announced that he concluded the president "deliberately subverted the rule of law" and that he would vote guilty on both articles. Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/17/newsid_4537000/4537597.stm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/timeline.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/monica-lewinsky-bill-clinton-scandal-7-things-we-learned-pbsdocumentary-clinton-411708 http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/press-past/2013/01/25/bill-clinton-15-years-ago-i-didnot-have-sexual-relations-with-that-woman http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/resources/lewinsky/timeline/ http://www.businessinsider.com/government-shutdown-caused-the-monica-lewinskyscandal-2013-9 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/01/monica-lewinsky-sex-tape-nationalenquirer_n_3691061.html http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/monica-lewinsky-tape-bill-clinton-newly-dugarticle-1.1414211 http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/01/25/poll.other/ http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/clinton/clintontrialaccount.html 5

Part 3 Irina Angelescu Textual Analysis On January 7, 1999, the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, formally charged with lying under oath and obstructing justice, began in the Senate; This was the second time the Congress had attempted to remove a president from office the first attempt the 1868 impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson; As it was the case, the chief justice of that time, William Rehnquist, presided the impeachment trial; all 100 senators were sworn in as jurors; Among those who voted as guilty was senator John McCain, whose statement was published in the Congressional Record for Friday, February 12, 1999; From the very beginning, senator McCain clearly states the fact that although he does not feels resentment for the President, he is determined to vote for his conviction on both articles of impeachment, because he is concerned that the institution of the Presidency might otherwise be harmed: I bear no animosity for the President. I take no partisan satisfaction from this matter. I don't lightly dismiss the public's clear opposition to conviction. And I am genuinely concerned that the institution of the Presidency not be harmed, either by the President's conduct, or by Congress' reaction to his conduct. The Senate faces an awful choice, to be sure. But, to my mind, it is a clear choice. I am persuaded that the President has violated his oath of office by committing perjury and by obstructing justice, and that by so doing he has forfeited his office; Therefore, McCain is absolutely convinced that President Clinton has broken the law and infringed the oath of his office; He then claims the fact that irrespective of the public opinion, he will not change his point of view with respect to the Presidents conviction, since he believes that the President is indeed guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice: If a clear majority of the American people were to demand the conviction of the President, should I vote for his conviction even if I believed the President to be innocent of the offenses he is charged with? Of course not. Neither, then, should I let public opinion restrain me from voting to convict if I determine the President is guilty; not influenced by the public opinion, according to which, the President should not be removed from office; Another issue that McCain brings into discussion is the following: again, the public opinion (including the Presidents counsel) believe that, despite his guilt or innocence, neither of the articles charge him with high crimes and misdemeanors; McCains opinion = different; he believes that even if the Presidents offenses were committed to cover up private not public misconduct, he still thwarted justice his crimes are intended to subvert the American democracy; therefore, we should not excuse or fail to punish in the constitutionally prescribed manner evidence that the President has deliberately thwarted the course of justice; McCain also underlines the fact that his goal is not that of judging the Presidents private misconduct, as this is a personal matter which Clinton should solve within his family; however, the President has to be judged on the basis of forswearing before the law: I
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sincerely wish circumstances had allowed the President to keep his personal life private. I have done things in my private life that I am not proud of. I suspect many of us have. But we are not asked to judge the President's character flaws. We are asked to judge whether the President, who swore an oath to faithfully execute his office, deliberately subverted--for whatever purpose--the rule of law; Another point that he makes: no matter how many mistakes he himself [McCain] has made throughout his whole life, he has kept, nevertheless, every oath that he has made before the law; also there are people who kept that faith at the cost of their lives & most officers would have resigned their commission had they been discovered violating their oath = the President didnt have the dignity to do this; His last, but not least idea: [] an ordinary citizen would not be treated as the President has been treated. But ordinary citizens don't enforce the laws for the rest of us. Ordinary citizens don't have the world's mightiest armed forces at their command. Ordinary citizens do not usually have the opportunity to be figures of historical importance. Presidents are not ordinary citizens. They are extraordinary, in that they are vested with so much more authority and power than the rest of us. We have a right; indeed, we have an obligation, to hold them strictly accountable to the rule of law ; in other words, the President is not to be treated like the rest of the citizens, as he has to be judged from the position that he holds (namely, the head of the state), who has to be a role model for the rest of the population, and not a figure that has ostensibly infringed a legal oath; Moreover, he urges the other senators to vote for the conviction of the President at once. Sources: Statement by Senator John McCain, February 12, 1999: http://australianpolitics.com/usa/clinton/trial/statements/mccain.shtml http://www.wikipedia.org http://www.britannica.com http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/clinton-impeachment-trial-begins http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18734.html www.thefreedictionary.com http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thwart Glossary: 106th Congress - a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from January 3, 1999 to January 3, 2001, during the last two years of Bill Clinton's presidency. The apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives was based on the Twenty-first Census of the United States in 1990. Both chambers had a Republican majority.

Abuse of Power - in the form of "malfeasance in office" or "official misconduct," is the commission of an unlawful act, done in an official capacity, which affects the performance of official duties. Malfeasance in office is often grounds for a for cause removal of an elected official by statute or recall election. Affidavit - is a written sworn statement of fact voluntarily made by an affiant or deponent under an oath or affirmation administered by a person authorized to do so by law. Such statement is witnessed as to the authenticity of the affiant's signature by a taker of oaths, such as a notary public or commissioner of oaths. Articles of Impeachment - the set of charges drafted against a public official to initiate the impeachment process. The articles of impeachment do not result in the removal of the official, but instead require the enacting body to take further action, such as bringing the articles to a vote before the full body. In the United States, the articles of impeachment are drafted by the House of Representatives for cases involving federal officials. Once drafted, a supermajority of the United States Senate is required to convict based on the articles. Bush, George W. - American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd President of the United States of America from 2001 to 2009[4] and the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. Bush was elected president in 2000 after a close and controversial election, becoming the fourth president to be elected while receiving fewer popular votes nationwide than his opponent. Bush is the second president to have been the son of a former president, the first being John Quincy Adams. Eight months into Bush's first term as president, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks occurred. In response, Bush announced the War on Terror, an international military campaign which included the war in Afghanistan launched in 2001 and the war in Iraq launched in 2003. In addition to national security issues, Bush also promoted policies on the economy, health care, education, social security reform, and amending the Constitution to disallow same-sex marriage.[7] He signed into law broad tax cuts, the PATRIOT Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, Medicare prescription drug benefits for seniors, and funding for the AIDS relief program known as PEPFAR. Congress = the legislature of the United States of America, established under the Constitution of 1789 and separated structurally from the executive and judicial branches of government. It consists of two houses: the Senate, in which each state, regardless of its size, is represented by two senators, and the House of Representatives, to which members are elected on the basis of population. Among the express powers of Congress as defined in the Constitution are the power to lay and collect taxes, borrow money on the credit of the United States, regulate commerce, coin money, declare war, raise and support armies, and make all laws necessary for the execution of its powers. Congressional Record = the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published by the United States Government Printing Office, and is issued when the United States Congress is in session. Indexes are issued approximately every two weeks. At the end of a session of Congress, the daily editions are compiled in bound volumes constituting the permanent edition. The Congressional Record is similar to Hansards, which report on the parliamentary debates in the UK's Westminster system of government. Counsel = A lawyer or group of lawyers giving legal advice and especially conducting a case in court.
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Contempt of court - a court order which in the context of a court trial or hearing, declares a person or organization to have disobeyed or been disrespectful of the court's authority. Often referred to simply as "contempt," such as a person "held in contempt," it is the judge's strongest power to impose sanctions for acts that disrupt the court's normal process. Democrats = pertaining to the Democratic Party, the oldest political party in the world, and one of the two major political parties in the United States. Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States along with the younger Republican Party. Tracing its origins back to the DemocraticRepublican Party, the modern Democratic Party was founded around 1828. It is the oldest political party in the world. It has elected 15 presidents. The first was Andrew Jackson, serving from 1829 to 1837; the most recent is the current president, Barack Obama, who has served since 2009. Since the 1930s, the party has promoted a socially liberal and progressive platform. Deposition - in the law of the United States, a deposition is the out-of-court oral testimony of a witness that is reduced to writing for later use in court or for discovery purposes. It is commonly used in litigation in the United States and Canada and is almost always conducted outside of court by the lawyers themselves (that is, the judge is not present to supervise the examination). In other countries, testimony is usually preserved for future use by way of live testimony in the courtroom, or by way of written affidavit. Grand Jury - is a legal body that is empowered to conduct official proceedings to investigate potential criminal conduct and to determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may compel the production of documents and may compel the sworn testimony of witnesses to appear before it. A grand jury is separate from the courts, which do not preside over its functioning. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing. Grand juries perform both accusatory and investigatory functions. The investigatory functions of the grand jury include obtaining and reviewing documents and other evidence and hearing the sworn testimony of witnesses that appear before it. The grand jury's accusatory function is to determine whether or not there is probable cause to believe that one or more persons committed a certain offense within the venue of the district court. The "grand jury" in the United States is composed of 16 to 23 citizens. Grand Jury Perjury - Intentionally lying under oath about a fact material to the case under consideration. Government Shut-Down 1995 - the result of conflicts between Democratic President Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress over funding for Medicare, education, the environment, and public health in the 1996 federal budget. The government shut down after Clinton vetoed the spending bill the Republican Party-controlled Congress sent him. The federal government of the United States put government workers on furlough and suspended non-essential services from November 14 through November 19, 1995 and from December 16, 1995 to January 6, 1996, for a total of 27 days. House of Representatives - forms one of the two branches of the U.S. Congress. The House comprises 435 members who are elected to two-year terms. The U.S. Constitution vests the
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House with the sole power of introducing bills for raising revenue, making it one of the most influential components of the U.S. government. Impeachment in the United States is an expressed power of the legislature that allows for formal charges against a civil officer of government for crimes committed in office. The actual trial on those charges, and subsequent removal of an official on conviction on those charges, is separate from the act of impeachment itself. Impeachment is analogous to indictment in regular court proceedings, while trial by the other house is analogous to the trial before judge and jury in regular courts. Typically, the lower house of the legislature will impeach the official and the upper house will conduct the trial. The House of Representatives has the sole power of impeaching, while the United States Senate has the sole power to try all impeachments. The removal of impeached officials is automatic upon conviction in the Senate. Johnson, Andrew = (born December 29, 1808 , Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S.died July 31, 1875, near Carter Station, Tennessee), 17th president of the United States (186569), who took office upon the assassination of Pres. Abraham Lincoln during the closing months of the American Civil War (186165). His lenient Reconstruction policies toward the South embittered the Radical Republicans in Congress and led to his political downfall and to his impeachment, though he was acquitted. In March 1867, the Radical Republicans effected their own plan of Reconstruction, again placing southern states under military rule. They passed laws placing restrictions upon the President. When Johnson allegedly violated one of these, the Tenure of Office Act, by dismissing Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, the House voted eleven articles of impeachment against him. He was tried by the Senate in the spring of 1868 and acquitted by one vote. Jones, Paula - is a former Arkansas state employee who sued U.S. President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment. Clinton entered into an out-of-court settlement, agreeing to pay Jones and her attorneys a total of $850,000, before the lawsuit was dismissed pre-trial on the grounds that Jones failed to demonstrate damages. Lewinsky, Monica - a graduate of Lewis & Clark College, was hired in 1995 to work as an intern at the White House during Clinton's first term, and began a personal relationship with him, the details of which she later confided to her friend and Defense department co-worker Linda Tripp, who secretly recorded their telephone conversations. When Tripp discovered in January 1998 that Lewinsky denied in court that she had had a relationship with Clinton, she delivered the tapes to Kenneth Starr, the Independent Counsel who was investigating Clinton on other matters, including the Whitewater scandal, the White House FBI files controversy, and the White House travel office controversy. The news of this extra-marital affair and the resulting investigation eventually led to the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998 by the U.S. House of Representatives and his subsequent acquittal on all impeachment charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in a 21-day Senate trial. Misdemeanor = 1. a criminal offense less serious than a felony. 2. an instance of bad behavior. Obama, Barack - is the 44th and current President of the United States, the first African American to hold the office. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil
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rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, running unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives in 2000. Obstruction of justice - in United States jurisdictions, refers to the crime of interfering with the work of police, investigators, regulatory agencies, prosecutors, or other (usually government) officials. Common law jurisdictions other than the United States tend to use the wider offense of perverting the course of justice. Generally, obstruction charges are laid when it is discovered that a person questioned in an investigation, other than a suspect, has lied to the investigating officers. However, in most common law jurisdictions, the right to remain silent used to allow any person questioned by police merely to refuse to answer questions posed by an investigator without giving any reason for doing so. Obstruction can include crimes committed by judges, prosecutors, attorneys general, and elected officials in general. Out-of-Court Settlement - an agreement reached between the parties in a pending lawsuit that resolves the dispute to their mutual satisfaction and occurs without judicial intervention, supervision, or approval. Paula Jones Case (Jones v. Clinton) was a landmark United States Supreme Court case establishing that a sitting President of the United States has no immunity from civil law litigation against him, for acts done before taking office and unrelated to the office. The suit, Jones v. Clinton, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Judge Susan Webber Wright, who had taken a class under then-Professor Clinton at the University of Arkansas School of Law, ruled that a sitting President could not be sued and deferred the case until the conclusion of his term (although she allowed the pre-trial discovery phase of the case to proceed without delay in order to start the trial as soon as Clinton left office). This lawsuit precipitated Clinton's impeachment. Charges of perjury and obstruction of justice were brought against Clinton based on statements he made during the depositions for the Jones lawsuit. The specific statements were about the nature of his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, with whom he denied having a sexual relationship. Polls 1. an activity in which several or many people are asked a question or a series of questions in order to get information about what most people think about something; 2. the record of votes that were made by people in an election; 3. the number of votes made in an election. Reagan, Ronald the 40th President of the United States (19811989). Prior to his presidency, he served as the 33rd Governor of California (19671975), and was a radio, film and television actor. Originally a member of the Democratic Party, his positions began shifting rightward in the 1950s, and he switched to the Republican Party in 1962. As president, Reagan implemented sweeping new political and economic initiatives. His supplyside economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics", advocated reducing tax rates to spur economic growth, controlling the money supply to reduce inflation, deregulation of the economy, and reducing government spending. In his first term he survived an assassination attempt, took a hard line against labor unions, announced a new War on Drugs, and ordered an invasion of Grenada. He was re-elected in a landslide in 1984, proclaiming that it was "Morning in America". His second term was primarily marked by foreign matters, such as the ending of the Cold War, the 1986 bombing of Libya, and the revelation of the IranContra
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affair. Publicly describing the Soviet Union as an "evil empire",[2] he supported anticommunist movements worldwide and spent his first term forgoing the strategy of dtente by ordering a massive military buildup in an arms race with the USSR. Reagan negotiated with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, culminating in the INF Treaty and the decrease of both countries' nuclear arsenals. A conservative icon, he ranks highly in public opinion polls of U.S. Presidents and is credited for generating an ideological renaissance on the American political right. Rehnquist, William = in full William Hubbs Rehnquist, original name William Donald Rehnquist (born October 1, 1924 , Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.died September 3, 2005 , Arlington, Virginia), 16th chief justice of the United States, appointed to the Supreme Court in 1971 and elevated to chief justice in 1986. Republicans = also commonly called the GOP (for "Grand Old Party"), is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, the other being the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery activists in 1854, it dominated politics nationally for most of the period from 1860 to 1932. Republican Party, also commonly called the GOP (for "Grand Old Party"), is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, the other being the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery activists in 1854, it dominated politics nationally for most of the period from 1860 to 1932. There have been 18 Republican presidents, the first being Abraham Lincoln, serving from 1861 to 1865, and the most recent being George W. Bush, serving from 2001 to 2009. The most recent Republican presidential nominee was former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Starr, Kenneth Winston is an American lawyer and educational administrator who has also been a federal judge. He carried out controversial investigation of figures during the Clinton administration. Starr served as a federal Court of Appeals judge and as solicitor general for George H. W. Bush. He received the most publicity for his tenure as independent counsel while Bill Clinton was U.S. president. Starr was initially appointed to investigate the suicide death of deputy White House counsel Vince Foster and the Whitewater real estate investments of Bill Clinton. The three-judge panel charged with administering the Independent Counsel Act later expanded the inquiry into numerous areas including an extramarital affair that Bill Clinton had with Monica Lewinsky. After several years of investigation, Starr filed the Starr Report, which alleged that Bill Clinton had lied about existence of the affair during a sworn deposition. The allegation opened the door for the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the fiveyear suspension of Clintons law license. Thwart = to prevent (someone) from doing something or to stop (something) from happening. Tripp, Linda Rose - former U.S. civil servant who figured in the Monica Lewinsky scandal of 1998/99 that led to the impeachment of U.S. President Bill Clinton. Tripp's action in secretly recording Lewinsky's confidential phone calls about her relationship with the President caused a sensation, with their links to the earlier Jones v. Clinton lawsuit, and the disclosing of notably intimate details. But Tripp claimed that her motives were purely patriotic, and she was able to avoid a wiretap charge in exchange for handing in the tapes. She then claimed that her firing from the Pentagon at the end of the Clinton administration was
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vindictive, though it was shown to be a standard routine. But she was able to claim generous compensation for unauthorized revelations about her security clearance. United States Defense Department - is the executive department of the government of the United States charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government concerned directly with national security and the United States Armed Forces. The Department is also the largest employer in the world,[5] with more than 2.13 million active duty soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and civilian workers, and over 1.1 million National Guardsmen and members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Reserves. The grand total is just over 3.2 million servicemen, servicewomen, and civilians. United States Office of the Independent Counsel - an independent prosecutor distinct from the Attorney General of the United States Department of Justice that provided reports to the Congress. The office was terminated in 1999 and replaced by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel. United States Supreme Court - established pursuant to Article III of the United States Constitution in 1789 as the highest federal court in the United States. It has ultimate (and largely discretionary) appellate jurisdiction over all federal courts and over state court cases involving issues of federal law, plus original jurisdiction over a small range of cases. In the legal system of the United States, the Supreme Court is the final interpreter of federal constitutional law, although it may only act within the context of a case in which it has jurisdiction. US Senate is a legislative chamber in the bicameral legislature of the United States of America, and together with the U.S. House of Representatives makes up the U.S. Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each U.S. state is represented by two senators, regardless of population, who serve staggered six-year terms. The chamber of the United States Senate is located in the north wing of the Capitol, in Washington, D.C., the national capital. The House of Representatives convenes in the south wing of the same building. Vietnam War - The Vietnam War was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The war began in 1954 (though conflict in the region stretched back to the mid-1940s), after the rise to power of Ho Chi Minh and his communist Viet Minh party in North Vietnam, and continued against the backdrop of an intense Cold War between two global superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. More than 3 million people (including 58,000 Americans) were killed in the Vietnam War; more than half were Vietnamese civilians. By 1969, at the peak of U.S. involvement in the war, more than 500,000 U.S. military personnel were involved in the Vietnam conflict. Growing opposition to the war in the United States led to bitter divisions among Americans, both before and after President Richard Nixon ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. In 1975, communist forces seized control of Saigon, ending the Vietnam War, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the following year.

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