Bill Clinton\u2019s impeachment two decades ago set the modern template for President Donald Trump\u2019s upcoming trial in the Senate. But the process may be even more contentious this time given sharper tribal divisions in Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clinton\u2019s four-week proceeding in 1999 riveted the nation. Thirteen Republican House managers marched across the Capitol to present articles of impeachment, led by the silver-maned chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Henry Hyde. An old-school grand orator, he cast Clinton\u2019s impeachment as a matter of national honour and invoked the sacrifices of war dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Monica Lewinsky, the White House intern who had an affair with the Democratic president, gave video testimony. And Arkansas Senator Dale Bumpers rebutted with a folksy drawl the managers\u2019 argument that the case was about principle rather than merely a titillating scandal: \u201cWhen you hear somebody say, \u2018This is not about sex,\u2019 it\u2019s about sex.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Partisan strife threatens to engulf the Senate once again as the chamber prepares a trial for two articles of impeachment against Trump, accusing him of abusing his power and blocking Congress\u2019s investigation into that abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rancor in 1999 eventually subsided as leaders from both parties moved to contain the damage. But they were navigating political cross-currents that produced very different incentives than their counterparts face today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bill Clinton\u2019s impeachment two decades ago set the modern template for President Donald Trump\u2019s upcoming trial in the Senate. But the process may be even more contentious this time given sharper tribal divisions in Washington. Clinton\u2019s four-week proceeding in 1999 riveted the nation. Thirteen Republican House managers marched across the Capitol to present articles of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77159"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77161,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77159\/revisions\/77161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}