PART 5 — THE SCANDAL THAT ALMOST ENDED BILL CLINTON’S PRESIDENCY
By the beginning of 1998, Bill Clinton had survived almost everything American politics had thrown at him.
He had lost elections.
He had made comebacks.
He had watched his health-care initiative collapse.
He had lost Congress to Republicans.
He had fought Newt Gingrich through two government shutdowns.
He had repositioned his presidency.
He had won reelection.
And as his second term moved forward, the American economy was expanding and the federal government’s financial position was improving.
From the outside, Clinton appeared to have survived the most dangerous political period of his presidency.
He had not.
Because the crisis that came next would not begin with Congress.
It would not begin with a budget.
It would not begin with an election.
And it would not begin with Monica Lewinsky.
To understand how the president of the United States came within a Senate trial of being removed from office, we have to go backward.
Back to Arkansas.
Back to a woman named Paula Jones.
And back to allegations that initially seemed completely separate from the major political battles of the Clinton presidency.
BEFORE MONICA LEWINSKY, THERE WAS PAULA JONES
Paula Corbin Jones had worked for the state of Arkansas while Bill Clinton was governor.
In 1994, she filed a federal civil lawsuit against Clinton, alleging that he had sexually harassed her during an encounter in 1991.
Clinton denied the allegation.
The lawsuit immediately created an unusual constitutional question.
Could a sitting president be required to defend a private civil lawsuit while serving in office?
Clinton’s lawyers argued that such litigation should be delayed until after his presidency.
The dispute eventually reached the Supreme Court.
In May 1997, the Court unanimously ruled in Clinton v. Jones that the Constitution did not automatically give a sitting president immunity from civil litigation involving unofficial conduct that allegedly occurred before taking office.
That decision had consequences far beyond the original lawsuit.
Because once the case moved forward, lawyers could gather evidence.
They could interview witnesses.
They could request documents.
And they could question the president under oath.
That is exactly what happened.
JANUARY 17, 1998
On January 17, 1998, President Clinton gave sworn testimony in the Jones case.
The deposition lasted several hours.
During it, attorneys asked him questions about relationships with women, including a former White House intern named Monica Lewinsky.
Clinton denied having a sexual relationship with Lewinsky under the definition being used in the deposition.
At the time, most Americans had never heard her name.
That would change within days.
And once it did, the presidency entered a crisis.
WHO WAS MONICA LEWINSKY?
Monica Lewinsky had worked at the White House as a young intern and later as an employee.
During Clinton’s presidency, she and the president had an inappropriate personal relationship.
The relationship itself later became a subject of enormous public attention.
But constitutionally, the central issue was not simply whether a married president had behaved improperly.
Presidents are not removed from office merely because Americans disapprove of their private behavior.
The legal and constitutional controversy centered on what Clinton had said under oath and whether he had attempted to obstruct the legal process.
That distinction became extremely important.
Because the scandal was about to move from personal conduct…
to sworn testimony…
to an independent counsel investigation…
and eventually to impeachment.
LINDA TRIPP
Another figure now entered the story.
Linda Tripp had worked in the White House and Pentagon and had become acquainted with Lewinsky.
Lewinsky discussed her relationship with Clinton with Tripp.
Without Lewinsky initially knowing, Tripp recorded some of their conversations.
Those recordings eventually reached Kenneth Starr’s investigation through Tripp and her attorneys.
And that changed everything.
Because Kenneth Starr was not simply a journalist investigating a political rumor.
He was an independent counsel with legal authority.
His investigation had originally focused on Whitewater and related matters involving the Clintons’ Arkansas years.
Now he sought and received authorization to investigate whether Clinton or others had engaged in illegal conduct connected to the Jones lawsuit and the Lewinsky matter.
A story that had begun as a civil case was merging with a federal investigation.
And the timing was extraordinary.
Clinton had given his deposition on January 17.
Within days, the Lewinsky story became national news.
JANUARY 1998: THE STORY EXPLODES
News organizations began reporting allegations that President Clinton had been involved in an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky and that questions had arisen about whether he had encouraged her to deny it.
Washington erupted.
Reporters surrounded the White House.
Television networks devoted enormous amounts of airtime to the story.
Politicians demanded answers.
The public heard Lewinsky’s name repeatedly.
And Clinton faced a basic decision:
What would he say?
On January 26, standing with Hillary Clinton nearby, the president issued one of the most famous denials of his presidency.
He denied having had sexual relations with Lewinsky.
The statement was direct.
Americans heard it.
Congress heard it.
Investigators heard it.
And months later, Clinton would acknowledge that he had in fact had an inappropriate intimate relationship with Lewinsky.
That reversal would become politically devastating.
Because now the issue wasn’t simply:
What happened?
It became:
Why did the president deny it?
And:
What exactly had he said under oath?
HILLARY CLINTON
For Hillary Clinton, the scandal created an extraordinary public situation.
She was simultaneously First Lady, wife, political partner and one of the most recognizable women in America.
Early in the controversy, she publicly defended her husband and argued that political opponents had been pursuing him aggressively for years.
As more evidence emerged, the situation became more complicated.
But one thing is important when telling this story decades later:
We should be careful not to invent private conversations inside the Clinton marriage.
The public could see statements.
The public could see appearances.
The public could see political consequences.
What happened privately between Bill and Hillary Clinton belongs to them unless they chose to describe it publicly.
The political crisis, however, was happening in full view.
And Kenneth Starr’s investigation was accelerating.
THE INVESTIGATION EXPANDED
Investigators sought testimony and physical evidence.
Lewinsky initially denied aspects of the relationship in an affidavit connected to the Jones case.
But Starr’s office eventually reached an immunity agreement with her.
She agreed to cooperate.
That was crucial.
Once Lewinsky cooperated, investigators had access to her testimony and additional evidence.
Clinton could no longer treat the controversy simply as an unsupported allegation.
The president now faced the possibility of giving testimony directly to a federal grand jury.
And unlike a press conference, campaign rally or political interview, grand-jury testimony is given under oath.
Words matter enormously.
Definitions matter.
Intent matters.
Contradictions matter.
The president’s lawyers knew it.
Starr’s prosecutors knew it.
Clinton knew it.
Then came August 17, 1998.
THE PRESIDENT TESTIFIES
For several hours on August 17, Bill Clinton testified before a federal grand jury by video from the White House.
It was an extraordinary moment.
A sitting president was answering prosecutors’ questions about his conduct.
The testimony involved detailed arguments about what Clinton had previously said, how terms had been defined during the Jones deposition, and whether his earlier answers had been truthful.
Later that same day, Clinton addressed the American people on television.
This time, the denial was gone.
He acknowledged that he had had an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky.
He also argued that his earlier testimony had been legally accurate under the definitions used, while acknowledging that he had misled people, including his family and the public.
For millions of Americans, the distinction sounded difficult.
For Clinton’s lawyers, the distinction was central.
Because impeachment was no longer merely about whether the president had behaved badly.
The question was whether his conduct met the constitutional standard for impeachment and potential removal from office.
And Washington was about to receive hundreds of pages of evidence and argument addressing exactly that question.
SEPTEMBER 9, 1998
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr sent his referral to the House of Representatives.
The referral identified eleven possible grounds for impeachment.
Two days later, the House voted overwhelmingly to send the material to the Judiciary Committee for review, and much of the report was released publicly.
The document became known simply as:
The Starr Report.
The internet suddenly became an important part of the story.
The report was made available online, allowing ordinary Americans to access material connected to a presidential investigation with unprecedented speed.
This was an early demonstration of how technology was changing politics.
In earlier presidential scandals, citizens largely depended on newspapers, television and radio to summarize investigative documents.
Now enormous numbers of people could read source material directly.
The political information environment was changing.
And Clinton’s scandal happened at exactly the moment that transformation was accelerating.
AMERICA WAS FORCED TO CONFRONT A CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION
The Constitution gives the House of Representatives the power to impeach federal officials.
The Senate conducts impeachment trials.
For conviction and removal, two-thirds of senators present must vote guilty.
But the Constitution does not provide a simple checklist defining every possible “high Crime and Misdemeanor.”
That phrase has generated debate throughout American history.
So the Clinton controversy produced two related but different questions.
First:
Had Clinton engaged in misconduct?
And second:
Was that misconduct serious enough to justify removing a president chosen by voters?
Those were not necessarily the same question.
Republicans supporting impeachment argued that lying under oath and obstructing justice were serious attacks on the legal system and rule of law.
Many Democrats and other opponents of impeachment argued that Clinton’s conduct deserved condemnation but did not justify overturning a presidential election through removal.
Some Americans believed both things simultaneously:
Clinton had behaved wrongly.
And Clinton should remain president.
That distinction became central to everything that followed.
THEN SOMETHING UNUSUAL HAPPENED
You might expect a scandal of this magnitude to destroy a president’s public support immediately.
The political picture was more complicated.
Clinton’s job-approval ratings remained relatively strong during much of the impeachment crisis, even as many Americans expressed disapproval of his personal behavior.
Why?
There wasn’t one explanation.
The economy was strong.
Some voters separated Clinton’s personal conduct from his performance as president.
Some believed congressional Republicans were pursuing impeachment too aggressively.
Others strongly supported impeachment.
The country was divided not simply over Clinton.
It was divided over what the appropriate punishment should be.
And then came the 1998 midterm elections.
REPUBLICANS EXPECTED THE SCANDAL TO MATTER
Historically, the president’s party often loses congressional seats in midterm elections.
Republicans also believed the Lewinsky controversy and impeachment debate could damage Democrats further.
Instead, the November 1998 elections produced a surprise.
Democrats gained House seats.
Republicans retained control, but their majority narrowed.
The result intensified debate inside the Republican Party about how the impeachment strategy was affecting voters.
And shortly afterward, another major political change occurred.
Newt Gingrich announced that he would not continue as Speaker and would leave Congress.
The man who had been one of Clinton’s principal political opponents during the government-shutdown battles was exiting the stage.
But impeachment continued.
DECEMBER 1998
The House Judiciary Committee considered articles of impeachment.
The proposed charges included allegations involving perjury and obstruction of justice.
The debate was intensely partisan.
Republicans argued that the president had abused the legal process and that allowing a president to lie under oath without serious constitutional consequences would undermine the rule of law.
Democrats argued that Clinton’s conduct was wrong but that impeachment and removal were disproportionate and constitutionally unwarranted.
Outside Congress, Americans watched.
Television carried the arguments.
Newspapers devoted enormous coverage to them.
The country had not experienced a presidential impeachment battle since the Watergate era—when Richard Nixon resigned before the full House voted on impeachment.
The only president previously impeached by the House had been Andrew Johnson in 1868.
Now another president was approaching that historical threshold.
DECEMBER 19, 1998
The House of Representatives voted.
Two articles of impeachment passed.
One charged Clinton with perjury before a federal grand jury.
The other charged obstruction of justice.
Two other proposed articles failed.
Bill Clinton had been impeached.
He was only the second U.S. president in history at that time to receive that constitutional judgment from the House.
But this is where a common misunderstanding needs to be corrected.
Impeachment does not automatically remove a president from office.
Impeachment is essentially the House bringing constitutional charges.
The Senate then holds a trial.
To convict and remove a president requires a two-thirds Senate vote.
Clinton was impeached.
He was still president.
Now the case moved across the Capitol.
To the Senate.
AMERICA ENTERED 1999 WITH A PRESIDENT ON TRIAL
Imagine the situation.
The United States still had a functioning president.
Clinton was conducting foreign policy.
He was dealing with Congress.
He was managing the executive branch.
He remained commander in chief.
At the same time, the Senate was preparing to conduct a constitutional trial that could theoretically end with his removal.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist would preside.
House members would serve as impeachment managers, effectively presenting the prosecution’s case.
Clinton’s attorneys would defend him.
One hundred senators would ultimately determine whether he remained president.
This was not an ordinary criminal trial.
The Constitution establishes impeachment as a separate political and constitutional process.
The question before senators was not whether Clinton should go to prison.
The question was whether the conduct charged by the House justified conviction and removal from the presidency.
And the threshold was intentionally high:
Two-thirds.
THE SENATE TRIAL
The Senate impeachment trial formally unfolded in January and February 1999.
The House managers presented their arguments.
Clinton’s defense responded.
Senators considered evidence and legal arguments.
There were debates over witnesses and procedure.
The proceedings lasted roughly five weeks, ending on February 12.
Both sides understood the mathematics.
Republicans held a Senate majority.
But a simple majority wasn’t enough.
They needed two-thirds of senators present to convict.
That meant they needed substantial Democratic support.
The votes ultimately showed how far they were from that threshold.
FEBRUARY 12, 1999
The Senate voted on the first article: perjury before the grand jury.
45 senators voted guilty.
55 voted not guilty.
Clinton was acquitted on Article I.
Then came Article II: obstruction of justice.
50 senators voted guilty.
50 voted not guilty.
Again, nowhere near the required two-thirds majority.
Clinton was acquitted.
The trial was over.
Bill Clinton would remain president.
HE HAD SURVIVED AGAIN
Consider the political journey now.
He had survived losing his first congressional campaign.
Survived losing the Arkansas governorship.
Returned and won again.
Reached the presidency.
Survived the 1994 Republican Revolution.
Survived the collapse of health-care reform.
Survived two government shutdowns.
Won reelection.
And now survived impeachment.
But this comeback was fundamentally different from the others.
The earlier crises were mostly political defeats imposed on him by voters or opponents.
This crisis grew substantially from Clinton’s own conduct.
That distinction matters.
It would be too simple to tell the story as:
Clinton defeated his enemies again.
He had contributed directly to creating the crisis.
He had damaged his credibility.
He had publicly denied a relationship he later acknowledged.
And even many people who opposed removing him from office believed his behavior deserved serious condemnation.
Survival did not equal vindication.
Acquittal meant the Senate did not reach the constitutional threshold required to convict and remove him.
It did not mean every senator approved of his conduct.
It certainly did not mean the country suddenly forgot what had happened.
MONICA LEWINSKY’S SIDE OF THE STORY MATTERS TOO
For years, popular culture often treated the scandal primarily as a story about Bill Clinton.
Monica Lewinsky became a household name while still a young woman.
She faced extraordinary media attention and public humiliation.
Decades later, Lewinsky would speak and write publicly about the experience, including the effects of public shaming and the enormous power imbalance involved when a young employee becomes entangled with the president of the United States.
That later perspective changed how many people discussed the scandal.
Historical interpretation evolves.
Events do not change.
But the questions societies ask about them can.
In the late 1990s, much of the discussion focused on presidential misconduct, perjury, obstruction and partisan politics.
Years later, conversations increasingly also included workplace power, consent, public humiliation, media ethics and how Lewinsky herself had been treated.
A complete modern account cannot treat her merely as a plot device in someone else’s presidency.
She was a real person whose life was transformed by the scandal.
WHAT ABOUT PAULA JONES?
The lawsuit that helped create the legal pathway toward the impeachment crisis did not simply disappear.
The Jones case had been dismissed at the federal district-court level in 1998.
While the dismissal was being appealed, Clinton ultimately agreed later that year to settle the lawsuit for $850,000 without admitting wrongdoing.
That settlement brought the civil case to an end.
But by then, its historical consequences were enormous.
Without the Jones litigation…
there may have been no deposition asking Clinton about Lewinsky.
Without that deposition…
the later questions about whether Clinton lied under oath would have developed very differently.
History often turns on connections that are impossible to see at the beginning.
A lawsuit involving allegations from Clinton’s years as Arkansas governor eventually helped produce a constitutional crisis during his second presidential term.
THE LEGAL CONSEQUENCES DID NOT COMPLETELY END WITH ACQUITTAL
Although Clinton remained president, the legal fallout continued.
In January 2001, shortly before leaving office, Clinton reached an agreement with the Arkansas Supreme Court’s Committee on Professional Conduct.
His Arkansas law license was suspended for five years, and he agreed to pay a fine in connection with issues arising from his testimony in the Jones case.
So again, the historical record is more complicated than either political slogan.
“Clinton was acquitted” is true.
“Clinton faced no consequences” is not.
Likewise, “Clinton was impeached” is true.
“Clinton was removed from office” is not.
Understanding the difference matters.
AND THROUGH ALL OF THIS, THE COUNTRY KEPT MOVING
One of the strangest aspects of the Clinton impeachment period was how ordinary government continued around an extraordinary constitutional drama.
The economy continued growing.
Businesses continued investing.
Technology companies continued expanding.
The internet continued spreading.
International crises did not stop because Washington was focused on impeachment.
Neither did diplomacy.
In December 1998—the same month the House impeached Clinton—the United States and Britain launched military strikes against Iraq during Operation Desert Fox after disputes over Iraqi compliance with weapons inspections.
The timing immediately generated political accusations and suspicion among some critics.
The administration maintained that the military action was based on national-security considerations.
This illustrates another difficulty presidents face during scandals.
Even legitimate government actions can become viewed through a political lens.
Every decision is questioned.
Every announcement is interpreted.
Every coincidence becomes part of the argument.
And yet presidents cannot simply stop making decisions until a scandal ends.
The world does not wait.
THEN CAME KOSOVO
Only weeks after Clinton’s Senate trial ended, another major foreign-policy crisis demanded attention.
Violence in Kosovo had intensified during the breakup of Yugoslavia.
After diplomatic efforts failed to resolve the crisis, NATO launched an air campaign against Yugoslav forces in March 1999.
The campaign lasted 78 days.
Clinton argued that action was necessary to stop ethnic violence and instability.
Critics questioned aspects of the intervention, including its legality, strategy and humanitarian consequences.
Once again, Clinton’s presidency was operating on two levels.
At home, Americans were still processing impeachment.
Overseas, the president was participating in decisions involving war and peace.
The constitutional crisis was over.
The presidency was not.
THE ECONOMY KEPT PRODUCING SURPRISING NUMBERS
By the late 1990s, the American economy was experiencing one of its longest expansions.
Unemployment was low.
Technology investment was booming.
The stock market had risen dramatically, although markets would later experience the dot-com crash.
And the federal budget had moved into surplus.
Fiscal year 1998 produced the first unified federal budget surplus since 1969.
Surpluses followed in 1999 and 2000.
Clinton frequently pointed to those numbers as evidence of his administration’s economic record.
Republicans emphasized their own role in restraining spending.
Federal Reserve policy, technological change, productivity, private investment and broader economic conditions also contributed to the period’s performance.
Presidents receive enormous political credit when economies perform well.
They receive enormous blame when economies perform badly.
Reality is more complicated.
No president controls an economy alone.
But by the final years of Clinton’s presidency, economic conditions were unquestionably an important part of how Americans evaluated his time in office.
And that produced one of the central contradictions of his presidency:
Clinton’s personal reputation had suffered enormously at the same time that many Americans viewed economic conditions favorably.
WHAT WOULD HISTORY REMEMBER?
By 1999, Bill Clinton had only about two years left in office.
He could not run again.
The Constitution limited him to two elected terms.
That changed the nature of his presidency.
The question was no longer:
Can he survive another election?
He wouldn’t face one.
The question became:
What could he accomplish before January 20, 2001?
And perhaps more importantly:
What would people remember after he left?
The economy?
NAFTA?
The 1994 crime law?
Welfare reform?
Budget surpluses?
The failed health-care initiative?
Appointments to the Supreme Court?
Northern Ireland?
The Balkans?
The Middle East peace process?
Impeachment?
Monica Lewinsky?
All of them?
Presidential legacies are rarely one thing.
And Clinton’s would become particularly difficult to separate into simple categories.
HILLARY CLINTON WAS ABOUT TO BEGIN A DIFFERENT JOURNEY
Something else remarkable was happening inside the Clinton family.
Hillary Clinton had entered the White House as First Lady.
She had become one of the most active and controversial First Ladies in modern history.
She had helped lead the failed health-care reform effort.
She had defended her husband during years of political attacks.
She had experienced the Lewinsky scandal publicly.
And now, before Bill Clinton even left office, she was preparing to run for office herself.
Not in Arkansas.
Not in Washington.
In New York.
In 2000, Hillary Clinton ran for the United States Senate.
If she won, she would become something historically unusual:
a First Lady elected to public office in her own right.
The Clinton political story was beginning to divide into two separate paths.
Bill’s presidency was approaching its end.
Hillary’s elected political career was about to begin.
And their daughter Chelsea, who had entered the White House as a twelve-year-old, was now a young adult.
Eight years had changed the entire family.
CLINTON WAS ALSO LOOKING OVERSEAS
Foreign policy increasingly occupied the president’s final years.
One area offered genuine progress:
Northern Ireland.
The Clinton administration had become involved in efforts supporting the peace process there.
In April 1998, political leaders reached the Good Friday Agreement, a landmark settlement aimed at ending decades of sectarian conflict known as the Troubles.
The agreement was primarily the work of leaders and communities in Britain, Ireland and Northern Ireland, with U.S. diplomacy playing a supporting role.
Clinton later visited the region and remained engaged with the peace process.
It became one of the foreign-policy achievements associated with his presidency.
But another peace effort would prove much more difficult.
The Middle East.
THE SEARCH FOR AN ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN AGREEMENT
Clinton devoted significant attention to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
He had been president when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat participated in the historic 1993 Oslo process.
Clinton hosted major negotiations and remained personally involved.
In 1998, the Wye River Memorandum produced another agreement.
But the larger conflict remained unresolved.
During Clinton’s final year in office, he pushed intensely for a comprehensive settlement.
In July 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat met at Camp David under Clinton’s mediation.
No final agreement emerged.
Later efforts also failed to produce a comprehensive peace settlement before Clinton left office.
This became another recurring pattern of the presidency.
Ambition did not always produce resolution.
Sometimes enormous effort produced partial progress.
Sometimes it produced failure.
Sometimes history remained unfinished.
THE YEAR 2000
By 2000, America was preparing for something larger than a normal change of presidents.
A new millennium had arrived.
The internet was transforming daily life.
Technology companies were everywhere.
Email was becoming ordinary.
Online commerce was expanding.
Mobile phones were spreading.
The world Clinton had entered as president in 1993 already seemed different.
And the next presidential election was approaching.
Vice President Al Gore sought to succeed Clinton.
Republicans nominated Texas Governor George W. Bush, son of the president Clinton had defeated eight years earlier.
Think about the symmetry.
1992:
Bill Clinton defeats George H. W. Bush.
2000:
Clinton’s vice president faces George H. W. Bush’s son.
The election would become one of the closest and most disputed in American history.
And Clinton could only watch.
His name was not on the ballot.
For the first time in nearly a decade, America’s political future would be decided without Bill Clinton as a candidate.
HILLARY MAKES HISTORY
On November 7, 2000, Hillary Rodham Clinton won election to the U.S. Senate from New York.
She became the first First Lady elected to the Senate and the first First Lady to win elected office.
Bill Clinton’s presidency was ending.
Hillary Clinton’s career as an elected official was beginning.
Few people watching that night could know exactly how far that career would eventually go.
Secretary of state.
Two presidential campaigns.
The first woman nominated for president by a major U.S. political party.
Those chapters were still ahead.
But in 2000, the immediate focus was on another election.
Bush versus Gore.
And that election did not end normally on election night.
AMERICA WAITED
The presidential election came down to Florida.
The margin was extraordinarily small.
Recounts followed.
Lawsuits followed.
For more than a month, Americans did not know with certainty who would become the next president.
Eventually, the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore effectively ended the recount process, and George W. Bush became president-elect.
Al Gore conceded.
Bill Clinton now knew who would occupy the White House after him.
The son of the man he had defeated in 1992.
Politics had completed another circle.
JANUARY 20, 2001
Eight years after first taking the oath of office, Bill Clinton’s presidency ended.
George W. Bush became the 43rd president.
Clinton was fifty-four years old.
Young for a former president.
His public life was far from finished.
But his time holding executive power was over.
No more Oval Office.
No more Air Force One as president.
No more daily national-security briefings as commander in chief.
No more vetoes.
No more presidential elections.
For nearly a quarter century—from his first statewide political rise in Arkansas through eight years in Washington—Clinton had been pursuing or exercising political power.
Now he had to answer a question every former president eventually confronts:
What do you do after being president of the United States?
For Clinton, the answer would involve philanthropy.
Global health.
Disaster relief.
Campaigning.
Books.
Speeches.
Political conventions.
Hillary’s career.
Chelsea’s growing public role.
International projects.
And, eventually, his own health challenges.
THE PRESIDENCY ENDED, BUT THE CLINTON STORY DIDN’T
This is important to remember when we return to where our much larger story began.
Bill Clinton did not disappear after January 2001.
In some ways, his post-presidential life would last longer than his entire rise from Arkansas attorney general to the White House.
He would establish what became the Clinton Foundation.
He would work with former political opponents on humanitarian causes.
He would become involved in global public-health efforts.
He would campaign for Democratic candidates.
He would campaign intensely for Hillary Clinton.
He would return repeatedly to the Democratic National Convention.
He would write books.
He would travel extensively.
And he would experience serious, publicly documented health problems that reminded Americans that the relatively young president they remembered from the 1990s was growing older.
One of those moments came only a few years after he left office.
And it was serious.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF CRISIS
During his presidency, Clinton’s biggest threats had been political.
Elections.
Congress.
Investigations.
Impeachment.
After leaving office, another kind of vulnerability became more visible.
Health.
In 2004, Bill Clinton underwent quadruple coronary bypass surgery after doctors discovered significant heart disease.
In 2005, he underwent another procedure related to complications from the surgery.
In 2010, he underwent a procedure in which stents were inserted into a coronary artery.
And in 2021, he was hospitalized for a non-COVID infection that entered his bloodstream, according to his physicians.
These were real, publicly documented health events.
They are important because they provide context for why headlines expressing concern about an aging former president can attract enormous attention.
But they also demonstrate why current health claims should be treated carefully.
A person can have a documented history of medical problems without every new internet rumor about that person’s condition being true.
Past illness is not proof of a present emergency.
Concern is not confirmation.
And that brings our long story much closer to the headline that started everything.
BUT WE ARE NOT THERE YET
Before returning to today’s online concern, there is another enormous chapter to understand.
Because Bill Clinton’s post-presidential years were not quiet retirement.
Far from it.
He created an organization that would operate internationally.
He became deeply involved in global health and development initiatives.
He joined former President George H. W. Bush—the very man he defeated in 1992—to raise money after devastating disasters.
He watched Hillary Clinton become a senator.
Then a presidential candidate.
Then secretary of state.
Then a presidential candidate again.
He watched Chelsea Clinton grow from the teenager Americans saw in the White House into an adult involved in the family’s philanthropic work.
And through all of it, Bill Clinton remained one of America’s most recognizable former presidents.
The political office disappeared.
The public attention did not.
In fact, sometimes it grew.
WHAT IMPEACHMENT REALLY CHANGED
Before we leave this chapter, however, there is one more question worth asking.
What did impeachment actually change?
It did not remove Clinton.
It did not end his presidency.
It did not prevent him from remaining active in public life.
But it permanently altered how his presidency would be remembered.
Before 1998, someone could tell Clinton’s story primarily through elections and policy.
After 1998, that became impossible.
The scandal became part of the historical record.
Any serious assessment of his presidency had to confront it.
And it changed the people around him too.
Monica Lewinsky’s life changed dramatically.
Hillary Clinton’s public story changed.
Congress changed.
The media changed.
Political attitudes changed.
And the episode became a reference point for later debates about presidential misconduct and impeachment.
History doesn’t allow us to separate the comfortable parts of a presidency from the uncomfortable ones.
Both belong to the same story.
Clinton’s presidency included economic expansion and impeachment.
Budget surpluses and personal scandal.
Diplomatic efforts and partisan warfare.
Political talent and serious failures of judgment.
That contradiction is not something a historian needs to solve.
It is something a historian needs to explain.
THE PRESIDENT WHO WOULD NOT DISAPPEAR
When Clinton walked out of the White House in January 2001, he left behind the constitutional power of the presidency.
But he carried something else with him.
A global name.
Almost everyone knew who Bill Clinton was.
Supporters remembered economic growth and political skill.
Critics remembered scandal and policies they opposed.
Others remembered both.
But very few Americans had no opinion at all.
That kind of recognition can last decades.
And Clinton intended to use it.
The former president from Arkansas was about to create an entirely new public identity.
Not Governor Clinton.
Not President Clinton.
Former President Clinton.
And over the next quarter century, that role would take him from disaster zones to international conferences, from hospital rooms to campaign stages, from humanitarian projects to another extraordinary attempt to return the Clinton family to the White House.
Except this time…
Bill would not be the candidate.
Hillary would.
And when 2016 arrived, the Clintons would find themselves at the center of another presidential election unlike anything they had experienced before.
PART 6 — AFTER THE WHITE HOUSE: HEALTH SCARES, HUMANITARIAN WORK, HILLARY’S RISE, AND THE CLINTONS’ RETURN TO PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS
Bill Clinton left the White House on January 20, 2001.
For most presidents, leaving office marks the beginning of a quieter chapter.
For Clinton, it became the beginning of another enormous public life.
Within only a few years, he would face major heart surgery.
He would join forces with the Bush family for disaster relief.
His foundation would expand around the world.
Hillary Clinton would move from First Lady to senator, presidential candidate and secretary of state.
And eventually, Bill Clinton would return to the campaign trail trying to accomplish something no former American president had ever done:
help send his own wife to the White House.
But before Hillary’s historic campaigns…
before 2008…
before Barack Obama…
before Donald Trump…
before 2016…
came a frightening reminder that political survival was no protection against something much more basic.
In 2004, only three years after leaving the presidency, Bill Clinton learned that arteries supplying his heart were severely blocked.
The former president who had survived impeachment was about to undergo major heart surgery.
And for the first time in our story, the central question wasn’t whether Bill Clinton’s political career could survive.
It was his health.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Bill Clinton
Part 5 of 7
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