William Jefferson Clinton (
né
A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth reg ...
Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd
president of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as
governor of Arkansas
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political r ...
from 1979 to 1981 and again from 1983 to 1992, and as
attorney general of Arkansas
The Attorney General of Arkansas, usually known simply as the Attorney General (AG), is one of Arkansas's seven constitutional officers. The officeholder serves as the state's top law enforcement officer and consumer advocate. Since January 1 ...
from 1977 to 1979. A member of the
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
, Clinton became known as a
New Democrat
New Democrats, also known as centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats, or moderate Democrats, are a centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party in the United States. As the Third Way faction of the party, they are seen as culturall ...
, as many of his policies reflected a
centrist
Centrism is a political outlook or position involving acceptance or support of a balance of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy while opposing political changes that would result in a significant shift of society strongly to the l ...
"
Third Way
The Third Way is a centrist political position that attempts to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of centre-right economic policies with centre-left social policies. The Third Way was born from a ...
" political philosophy. He is the husband of
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
, who was a
senator
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
from
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
from 2001 to 2009,
secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 and the Democratic nominee for president in the
2016 presidential election.
Clinton was born and raised in
Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...
and attended
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...
. He received a
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom.
Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...
to study at
University College, Oxford
University College (in full The College of the Great Hall of the University of Oxford, colloquially referred to as "Univ") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It has a claim to being the oldest college of the univer ...
and later graduated from
Yale Law School
Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by ''U ...
. He met Hillary Rodham at Yale; they married in 1975. After graduating from law school, Clinton returned to Arkansas and won election as state attorney general, followed by
two non-consecutive tenures as Arkansas governor. As governor, he overhauled the state's education system and served as chairman of the
National Governors Association
The National Governors Association (NGA) is an American political organization founded in 1908. The association's members are the governors of the 55 states, territories and commonwealths. Members come to the association from across the politica ...
. Clinton was elected president in the
1992 presidential election, defeating incumbent
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
president
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...
and
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
businessman
Ross Perot
Henry Ross Perot (; June 27, 1930 – July 9, 2019) was an American business magnate, billionaire, politician and philanthropist. He was the founder and chief executive officer of Electronic Data Systems and Perot Systems. He ran an inde ...
. At 46 years old, he became the
third-youngest president of the United States and the first president to be born in the
Baby Boomer
Baby boomers, often shortened to boomers, are the Western demographic cohort following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964, during the mid-20th century baby boom. T ...
generation.
Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. He signed into law the
North American Free Trade Agreement
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA ; es, Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte, TLCAN; french: Accord de libre-échange nord-américain, ALÉNA) was an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States that crea ...
(NAFTA) and the
Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, commonly referred to as the 1994 Crime Bill, the Clinton Crime Bill, or the Biden Crime Law, is an Act of Congress dealing with crime and law enforcement; it became law in 1994. It is t ...
, but failed to pass his plan for
national health care reform. The Republican Party
won unified control of Congress for the first time in 40 years in the
1994 elections, but Clinton was still comfortably re-elected in
1996
File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...
, becoming the first Democrat since
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
to win a second full term. Starting in the mid-1990s, he began an ideological evolution as he became much more conservative in his domestic policy, advocating for and signing the
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) is a United States federal law passed by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The bill implemented major changes to ...
, the
State Children's Health Insurance Program
The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) – formerly known as the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) – is a program administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provides matching funds to ...
and financial deregulation measures. He appointed
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; ; March 15, 1933September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by President ...
and
Stephen Breyer
Stephen Gerald Breyer ( ; born August 15, 1938) is a retired American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 until his retirement in 2022. He was nominated by President Bill Clinton, and repl ...
to the
U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
. During the last three years of Clinton's presidency, the
Congressional Budget Office
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a federal agency within the legislative branch of the United States government that provides budget and economic information to Congress.
Inspired by California's Legislative Analyst's Office that manages ...
reported a budget surplus—the first such surplus since 1969. In foreign policy, Clinton ordered U.S. military intervention in the
Bosnian and
Kosovo
Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...
wars, eventually signing the
Dayton Peace agreement
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement or the Dayton Accords ( Croatian: ''Daytonski sporazum'', Serbian and Bosnian: ''Dejtonski mirovni sporazum'' / Дејтонски мир ...
. He also called for the
expansion of NATO
NATO is a military alliance of twenty-eight European and two North American countries that constitutes a system of collective defense. The process of joining the alliance is governed by Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which allows ...
in Eastern Europe and many former
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...
members joined NATO during his presidency. Clinton's foreign policy in the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
saw him sign the
Iraq Liberation Act
The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 is a United States Congressional statement of policy stating that "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." It was signed i ...
which gave aid to groups against
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
. He also participated in the
Oslo I Accord
The Oslo I Accord or Oslo I, officially called the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements or short Declaration of Principles (DOP), was an attempt in 1993 to set up a framework that would lead to the resolution of th ...
and
Camp David Summit to advance the
Israeli–Palestinian peace process
The Israeli–Palestinian peace process refers to the intermittent discussions held by various parties and proposals put forward in an attempt to resolve the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Since the 1970s, there has been a parallel ef ...
, and assisted the
Northern Ireland peace process
The Northern Ireland peace process includes the events leading up to the 1994 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire, the end of most of the violence of the Troubles, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and subsequent political developm ...
.
Clinton's second term was dominated by the
Monica Lewinsky scandal
Monica may refer to:
People
*Monica (actress) (born 1987), Indian film actress
*Monica (given name), a given name (including a list of people and characters with the name)
*Monica (singer) (born 1980), American R&B singer, songwriter, producer, ...
which began in 1996, when he allegedly had a sexual relationship with 22-year-old
Monica Lewinsky
Monica Samille Lewinsky (born July 23, 1973) is an American activist and writer. President Bill Clinton admitted to having an affair with Lewinsky while she worked at the White House as an intern in 1995 and 1996. The affair, and its repercus ...
, an
intern
An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and gover ...
at the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
. In January 1998, news of the affair made tabloid headlines. The scandal escalated throughout the year, culminating on December 19 when
Clinton was impeached by the
House of Representatives
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...
, becoming the second U.S. president to be impeached after
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Dem ...
. The two impeachment articles that the House passed were centered around Clinton using the powers of the presidency to obstruct the investigation and that he
lied under oath. In 1999, Clinton's impeachment trial began in the
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
.
Clinton was acquitted on both charges as the Senate failed to cast 67 votes against him, the conviction threshold.
Clinton left office in 2001 with the joint-highest
approval rating
An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll (although strictly a poll is an actual election) is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions ...
of any U.S. president in the modern era, alongside Franklin D. Roosevelt and
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
. His presidency has been ranked among the upper tier in
historical rankings of U.S. presidents
In political studies, surveys have been conducted in order to construct historical rankings of the success of the presidents of the United States. Ranking systems are usually based on surveys of academic historians and political scientists or p ...
. However, his personal conduct and
allegations of sexual assault have made him the subject of substantial scrutiny. Since leaving office, Clinton has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. He created the
Clinton Foundation
The Clinton Foundation (founded in 2001 as the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation, and renamed in 2013 as the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation) is a nonprofit organization under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code. It was e ...
to address international causes such as the prevention of
HIV/AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...
and
global warming
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
. In 2009, he was named the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
Special Envoy
Diplomatic rank is a system of professional and social rank used in the world of diplomacy and international relations. A diplomat's rank determines many ceremonial details, such as the order of precedence at official processions, table seating ...
to
Haiti
Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...
. After the
2010 Haiti earthquake
A disaster, catastrophic Moment magnitude scale, magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest (department), Ouest department, a ...
, Clinton and
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
formed the
Clinton Bush Haiti Fund
The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund was a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded on January 16, 2010, by former US Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, to aid the victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The organization was formed in response to ...
. He has remained active in Democratic Party politics, campaigning for his wife's
2008
File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...
and
2016 presidential campaigns.
Early life and career
![Bill Clinton in 1963 Old Gold Book](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Bill_Clinton_in_1963_Old_Gold_Book.jpg)
Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, at Julia Chester Hospital in
Hope, Arkansas
Hope is a city in Hempstead County in southwestern Arkansas, United States. Hope is the county seat of Hempstead County and the principal city of the Hope Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Hempstead and Nevada counties. As of ...
. He is the son of
William Jefferson Blythe Jr., a traveling salesman who died in an automobile accident three months before his birth, and
Virginia Dell Cassidy (later Virginia Kelley).
His parents had married on September 4, 1943, but this union later proved to be bigamous, as Blythe was still married to his third wife. Virginia traveled to
to study nursing soon after Bill was born, leaving him in Hope with her parents Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, who owned and ran a small grocery store.
At a time when the southern United States was
racially segregated
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...
, Clinton's grandparents sold goods on
credit
Credit (from Latin verb ''credit'', meaning "one believes") is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party wherein the second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt), ...
to people of all races.
In 1950, Bill's mother returned from nursing school and married
Roger Clinton Sr., who co-owned an
automobile dealership in
Hot Springs, Arkansas
Hot Springs is a resort city in the state of Arkansas and the county seat of Garland County. The city is located in the Ouachita Mountains among the U.S. Interior Highlands, and is set among several natural hot springs for which the city is n ...
, with his brother and
Earl T. Ricks.
The family moved to Hot Springs in 1950.
Although he immediately assumed use of his stepfather's surname, it was not until Clinton turned 15
that he formally adopted the surname Clinton as a gesture toward him.
Clinton has described his stepfather as a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly abused his mother and half-brother,
Roger Clinton Jr. He threatened his stepfather with violence multiple times to protect them.
In Hot Springs, Clinton attended St. John's Catholic Elementary School, Ramble Elementary School, and whites only
Hot Springs High School, where he was an active student leader, avid reader, and musician.
Clinton was in the chorus and played the
tenor saxophone
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while th ...
, winning first chair in the state band's saxophone section. In 1961, Clinton became a member of the Hot Springs Chapter of the
Order of DeMolay
DeMolay International is an international fraternal organization for young men ages 12 to 21. It was founded in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1919 and named for Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar. DeMolay was incorporat ...
, a youth group affiliated with
Freemasonry
Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...
, but he never became a Freemason. He briefly considered dedicating his life to music, but as he noted in his autobiography ''
My Life My Life may refer to:
Autobiographies
* ''Mein Leben'' (Wagner) (''My Life''), by Richard Wagner, 1870
* ''My Life'' (Clinton autobiography), by Bill Clinton, 2004
* ''My Life'' (Meir autobiography), by Golda Meir, 1973
* ''My Life'' (Mosley a ...
'':
![1993 Inaugural Letter Cover (5)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/1993_Inaugural_Letter_Cover_%285%29.png)
Clinton began an interest in law at Hot Springs High, when he took up the challenge to argue the defense of the ancient
Roman senator
The Roman Senate ( la, Senātus Rōmānus) was a governing and advisory assembly in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, being established in the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in ...
Catiline
Lucius Sergius Catilina ( 108 BC – January 62 BC), known in English as Catiline (), was a Roman politician and soldier. He is best known for instigating the Catilinarian conspiracy, a failed attempt to violently seize control of the R ...
in a mock trial in his Latin class. After a vigorous defense that made use of his "budding rhetorical and political skills", he told the Latin teacher Elizabeth Buck it "made him realize that someday he would study law".
Clinton has identified two influential moments in his life, both occurring in 1963, that contributed to his decision to become a public figure. One was his visit as a
Boys Nation senator to the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
to meet President
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
.
The other was watching
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
's 1963 "
I Have a Dream
"I Have a Dream" is a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist and Baptist minister, Martin Luther King Jr., during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. In the speech, King called ...
" speech on TV, which impressed him so much that he later memorized it.
College and law school years
Georgetown University
![Clinton at Georgetown 1967](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Clinton_at_Georgetown_1967.jpg)
With the aid of scholarships, Clinton attended the
School of Foreign Service
The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) is the school of international relations at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. It is considered to be one of the world's leading international affairs schools, granting degrees at both ...
at
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...
in Washington, D.C., receiving a
Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service
The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) is the school of international relations at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. It is considered to be one of the world's leading international affairs schools, granting degrees at both ...
degree in 1968. Georgetown was the only school where Clinton applied.
In 1964 and 1965, Clinton won elections for
class president
A class president, also known as a class representative, is usually the leader of a student body class, and presides over its class cabinet or organization within a student council. In a grade school, class presidents are generally elected by th ...
. From 1964 to 1967, he was an intern and then a clerk in the office of Arkansas Senator
J. William Fulbright
James William Fulbright (April 9, 1905 – February 9, 1995) was an American politician, academic, and statesman who represented Arkansas in the United States Senate from 1945 until his resignation in 1974. , Fulbright is the longest serving chair ...
.
While in college, he became a brother of service fraternity
Alpha Phi Omega
Alpha Phi Omega (), commonly known as APO, but also A-Phi-O and A-Phi-Q, is a coeducational service fraternity. It is the largest collegiate fraternity in the United States, with chapters at over 350 campuses, an active membership of over 25,0 ...
and was elected to
Phi Beta Kappa
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...
. He is a member of
Kappa Kappa Psi
Kappa Kappa Psi National Honorary Band Fraternity (, colloquially referred to as KKPsi), is a fraternity for college and university band members in the United States. It was founded on November 27, 1919, on Thanksgiving Day, at Oklahoma Agricul ...
honorary band fraternity.
Oxford
Upon graduating from Georgetown in 1968, Clinton won a
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom.
Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...
to
University College, Oxford
University College (in full The College of the Great Hall of the University of Oxford, colloquially referred to as "Univ") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It has a claim to being the oldest college of the univer ...
, where he initially read for a
B.Phil.
Bachelor of Philosophy (BPhil, BPh, or PhB; la, Baccalaureus Philosophiae or ) is the title of an academic degree that usually involves considerable research, either through a thesis or supervised research projects. Unlike many other bachelor's d ...
in
philosophy, politics, and economics but transferred to a
B.Litt. Bachelor of Letters (BLitt or LittB; Latin ' or ') is a second undergraduate university degree in which students specialize in an area of study relevant to their own personal, professional, or academic development. This area of study may have been t ...
in politics and, ultimately, a B.Phil. in politics.
Clinton did not expect to return for the second year because of the draft and so he switched programs; this type of activity was common among other Rhodes Scholars from his cohort. He had received an offer to study at
Yale Law School
Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by ''U ...
,
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
, and so he left early to return to the United States and did not receive a degree from Oxford.
During his time at Oxford, Clinton befriended fellow American Rhodes Scholar Frank Aller. In 1969, Aller received a
draft
Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to:
Watercraft dimensions
* Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel
* Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail
* Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vessel ...
letter that mandated deployment to the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
. Aller's 1971 suicide had an influential impact on Clinton.
British writer and feminist
Sara Maitland
Sara Maitland (born 27 February 1950) is a British writer of religious fantasy. A novelist, she is also known for her short stories. Her work has a magic realist tendency.
Life and career
Sarah (later "Sara") Louise Maitland was born in London ...
said of Clinton, "I remember Bill and Frank Aller taking me to a pub in Walton Street in the summer term of 1969 and talking to me about the Vietnam War. I knew nothing about it, and when Frank began to describe the napalming of civilians I began to cry. Bill said that feeling bad wasn't good enough. That was the first time I encountered the idea that liberal sensitivities weren't enough and you had to do something about such things".
Clinton was a member of the
Oxford University Basketball Club and also played for Oxford University's
rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...
team.
While Clinton was president in 1994, he received an honorary degree and a fellowship from the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
, specifically for being "a doughty and tireless champion of the cause of world peace", having "a powerful collaborator in his wife," and for winning "general applause for his achievement of resolving the gridlock that prevented an agreed budget".
Vietnam War opposition and draft controversy
During the Vietnam War, Clinton received educational draft deferments while he was in England in 1968 and 1969. While at Oxford, he participated in
Vietnam War protests
Protests against the Vietnam War took place in the 1960s and 1970s. The protests were part of a movement in opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War. The majority of the protests were in the United States, but some took place ar ...
and organized a
Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam
The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam was a massive demonstration and teach-in across the United States against the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. It took place on October 15, 1969, followed a month later, on November 15, 196 ...
event in October 1969.
He was planning to attend law school in the U.S. and knew he might lose his deferment. Clinton tried unsuccessfully to obtain positions in the
National Guard
National Guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards.
Nat ...
and the
Air Force officer candidate school, and he then made arrangements to join the
Reserve Officers' Training Corps
The Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC ( or )) is a group of college- and university-based officer-training programs for training commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces.
Overview
While ROTC graduate officers serve in all ...
(ROTC) program at the
University of Arkansas
The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and the largest university in the state. Founded as Arkansas ...
.
He subsequently decided not to join the ROTC, saying in a letter to the officer in charge of the program that he opposed the war, but did not think it was honorable to use ROTC, National Guard, or Reserve service to avoid serving in Vietnam. He further stated that because he opposed the war, he would not volunteer to serve in uniform, but would subject himself to the draft, and would serve if selected only as a way "to maintain my political viability within the system". Clinton registered for the draft and received a high number (311), meaning that those whose birthdays had been drawn as numbers1 to 310 would be
drafted before him, making it unlikely he would be called up. (In fact, the highest number drafted was 195.)
Colonel
Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations.
In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge of ...
Eugene Holmes, the Army officer who had been involved with Clinton's ROTC application, suspected that Clinton attempted to manipulate the situation to avoid the draft and avoid serving in uniform. He issued a
notarize
A notary is a person authorised to perform acts in legal affairs, in particular witnessing signatures on documents. The form that the notarial profession takes varies with local legal systems.
A notary, while a legal professional, is disti ...
d statement during the 1992 presidential campaign:
During the 1992 campaign, it was revealed that Clinton's uncle had attempted to secure him a position in the
Navy Reserve, which would have prevented him from being deployed to Vietnam. This effort was unsuccessful and Clinton said in 1992 that he had been unaware of it until then. Although legal, Clinton's actions with respect to the draft and deciding whether to serve in the military were criticized during his first presidential campaign by conservatives and some Vietnam veterans, some of whom charged that he had used Fulbright's influence to avoid military service. Clinton's 1992 campaign manager,
James Carville
Chester James Carville Jr. (born October 25, 1944) is an American political consultant, author, and occasional actor who has strategized for candidates for public office in the United States and in at least 23 nations abroad. A Democrat, he is an ...
, successfully argued that Clinton's letter in which he declined to join the ROTC should be made public, insisting that voters, many of whom had also opposed the Vietnam War, would understand and appreciate his position.
Law school
After Oxford, Clinton attended Yale Law School and earned a
Juris Doctor
The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law
and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...
(J.D.) degree in 1973.
In 1971, he met his future wife, Hillary Rodham, in the
Yale Law Library; she was a class year ahead of him.
They began dating and were soon inseparable. After only about a month, Clinton postponed his summer plans to be a coordinator for the
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern (July 19, 1922 – October 21, 2012) was an American historian and South Dakota politician who was a U.S. representative and three-term U.S. senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 pres ...
campaign
Campaign or The Campaign may refer to:
Types of campaigns
* Campaign, in agriculture, the period during which sugar beets are harvested and processed
*Advertising campaign, a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme
* Bl ...
for the
1972 United States presidential election
The 1972 United States presidential election was the 47th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 7, 1972. Incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon defeated Democratic Senator George McGovern of South Dakota. Un ...
in order to move in with her in California. The couple continued
living together in New Haven when they returned to law school.
Clinton eventually
moved to Texas with Rodham in 1972 to take a job leading McGovern's effort there. He spent considerable time in
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
, at the campaign's local headquarters on Lemmon Avenue, where he had an office. Clinton worked with future two-term
mayor of Dallas
The Mayor of the City of Dallas is the head of the Dallas City Council. The current mayor is Eric Johnson (Texas politician), Eric Johnson, who has served one term since 2019 Dallas mayoral election, 2019 and is the 62nd mayor to serve the posit ...
Ron Kirk
Ronald Kirk (born June 27, 1954) is an American lawyer, politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as the United States Trade Representative from 2009 to 2013 and the 57th Mayor of Dallas from 1995 to 2002.
Born in Austin, Texas, ...
, future
governor of Texas
The governor of Texas heads the state government of Texas. The governor is the leader of the executive and legislative branch of the state government and is the commander in chief of the Texas Military. The current governor is Greg Abbott, who ...
Ann Richards
Dorothy Ann Richards (née Willis; September 1, 1933 – September 13, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 45th governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995. A Democrat, she first came to national attention as the Texas State Treasurer, ...
, and then unknown television director and filmmaker
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spie ...
.
Failed congressional campaign and tenure as Attorney General of Arkansas
After graduating from Yale Law School, Clinton returned to Arkansas and became a law professor at the University of Arkansas. In 1974, he ran for the
House of Representatives
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...
. Running in the conservative
3rd district against incumbent Republican
John Paul Hammerschmidt
John Paul Hammerschmidt (May 4, 1922 – April 1, 2015) was an American politician from the state of Arkansas. A Republican Party (United States), Republican, Hammerschmidt served thirteen terms in the United States House of Representatives ...
, Clinton's campaign was bolstered by the anti-Republican and anti-incumbent mood resulting from the
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual ...
. Hammerschmidt, who had received 77 percent of the vote in 1972, defeated Clinton by only a 52 percent to 48 percent margin. In 1976, Clinton ran for
Arkansas attorney general
The Attorney General of Arkansas, usually known simply as the Attorney General (AG), is one of Arkansas's seven constitutional officers. The officeholder serves as the state's top law enforcement officer and consumer advocate. Since January 13 ...
. Defeating the secretary of state and the deputy attorney general in the Democratic primary, Clinton was elected with no opposition at all in the general election, as no Republican had run for the office.
Governor of Arkansas (1979–1981, 1983–1992)
![Bill Clinton 1978](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Bill_Clinton_1978.jpg)
In 1978, Clinton entered the Arkansas gubernatorial primary. At just 31 years old, he was one of the youngest gubernatorial candidates in the state's history. Clinton was elected
governor of Arkansas
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political r ...
in
1978
Events January
* January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213.
* January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd go ...
, having defeated the Republican candidate
Lynn Lowe
Aylmer Lynn Lowe, known as A. Lynn Lowe (March 6, 1936 – August 14, 2010), was an American farmer and politician from Garland near Texarkana in Miller County in southwestern Arkansas, who was a major figure in the Arkansas Republican Par ...
, a farmer from
Texarkana. Clinton was only 32 years old when he took office, the youngest governor in the country at the time and the second youngest governor in the history of Arkansas. Due to his youthful appearance, Clinton was often called the "Boy Governor". He worked on educational reform and directed the maintenance of Arkansas's roads, with wife Hillary leading a successful committee on urban health care reform. However, his term included an unpopular motor vehicle tax and citizens' anger over the escape of Cuban refugees (from the
Mariel boatlift
The Mariel boatlift () was a mass emigration of Cubans who traveled from Cuba's Mariel Harbor to the United States between 15 April and 31 October 1980. The term "" (plural "Marielitos") is used to refer to these refugees in both Spanish and En ...
) detained in
Fort Chaffee
Fort Chaffee Joint Maneuver Training Center is an Army National Guard installation in western Arkansas, adjacent to the city of Fort Smith. Established as Camp Chaffee in 1941, renamed to Fort Chaffee in 1956, Fort Chaffee has served as a United ...
in 1980. Monroe Schwarzlose, of
Kingsland in
Cleveland County
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the United States, U.S. U.S. state, state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along ...
, polled 31 percent of the vote against Clinton in the Democratic gubernatorial primary of 1980. Some suggested Schwarzlose's unexpected voter turnout foreshadowed Clinton's defeat by Republican challenger
Frank D. White
Frank Durward White (born Durward Frank Kyle Jr.; June 4, 1933 – May 21, 2003) was an American banker and politician who served as the 41st governor of Arkansas. He served a single two-year term from 1981 to 1983.
Early years, family, ed ...
in the general election that year. As Clinton once joked, he was the youngest ex-governor in the nation's history.
Clinton joined friend
Bruce Lindsey
Bruce R. Lindsey (born 1950/51) is an American lawyer and non-profit executive. He served in the White House during the Presidency of Bill Clinton. He was named in a lawsuit during the Whitewater controversy, and he testified before a grand jury ...
's Little Rock law firm of Wright, Lindsey and Jennings. In 1982, he was elected governor a second time and kept the office for ten years. Effective with the 1986 election, Arkansas had changed its gubernatorial term of office from two to four years. During his term, he helped transform Arkansas's economy and improved the state's educational system.
For
senior citizen
Old age refers to ages nearing or surpassing the life expectancy of human beings, and is thus the end of the human life cycle. Terms and euphemisms for people at this age include old people, the elderly (worldwide usage), OAPs (British usage ...
s, he removed the
sales tax
A sales tax is a tax paid to a governing body for the sales of certain goods and services. Usually laws allow the seller to collect funds for the tax from the consumer at the point of purchase. When a tax on goods or services is paid to a govern ...
from medications and increased the home property-tax exemption.
He became a leading figure among the
New Democrats
New Democrats, also known as centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats, or moderate Democrats, are a centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party in the United States. As the Third Way faction of the party, they are seen as culturall ...
, a group of
Democrats who advocated welfare reform, smaller government, and other policies not supported by liberals. Formally organized as the
Democratic Leadership Council
The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was founded in 1985 and closed in 2011. Founded and directed by Al From, prominent members include Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton (who was elected president in 1992 and 1996), Delaware Senator Joe Biden ( ...
(DLC), the New Democrats argued that in light of President
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
's
landslide victory in 1984, the Democratic Party needed to adopt a more centrist political stance in order to succeed at the national level.
Clinton delivered the
Democratic response to Reagan's
1985 State of the Union Address
The 1985 State of the Union Address was given by the 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, on February 6, 1985 — Reagan’s 74th birthday — at 9:00 p.m. EST, in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives to the ...
and served as chair of the
National Governors Association
The National Governors Association (NGA) is an American political organization founded in 1908. The association's members are the governors of the 55 states, territories and commonwealths. Members come to the association from across the politica ...
from 1986 to 1987, bringing him to an audience beyond Arkansas.
In the early 1980s, Clinton made reform of the Arkansas education system a top priority of his gubernatorial administration. The Arkansas Education Standards Committee was chaired by Clinton's wife Hillary, who was also an attorney as well as the chair of the
Legal Services Corporation
The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) is a publicly funded, 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation established by the United States Congress. It seeks to ensure equal access to justice under the law for all Americans by providing funding for civil legal ...
. The committee transformed Arkansas's education system. Proposed reforms included more spending for schools (supported by a sales-tax increase), better opportunities for gifted children, vocational education, higher teachers' salaries, more course variety, and compulsory teacher competency exams. The reforms passed in September 1983 after Clinton called a special
legislative session
A legislative session is the period of time in which a legislature, in both parliamentary and presidential systems, is convened for purpose of lawmaking, usually being one of two or more smaller divisions of the entire time between two elections. ...
—the longest in Arkansas history.
Many have considered this the greatest achievement of the Clinton governorship.
He defeated four Republican candidates for governor: Lowe (1978), White (1982 and 1986),
Jonesboro businessmen
Woody Freeman (1984), and
Sheffield Nelson
Edward Sheffield Nelson, known as Sheffield Nelson (born April 23, 1941), is an American attorney, businessman and politician from the capital city of Little Rock, Arkansas. Originally a Democrat, Nelson in 1990 ran for governor of Arkansas as ...
of Little Rock (1990).
Also in the 1980s, the Clintons' personal and business affairs included transactions that became the basis of the
Whitewater controversy
The Whitewater controversy, Whitewater scandal, Whitewatergate, or simply Whitewater, was an American political controversy during the 1990s. It began with an investigation into the real estate investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their ass ...
investigation, which later dogged his presidential administration.
After extensive investigation over several years, no indictments were made against the Clintons related to the years in Arkansas.
According to some sources, Clinton was a
death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
opponent in his early years, but he eventually switched positions.
However he might have felt previously, by 1992, Clinton was insisting that Democrats "should no longer feel guilty about protecting the innocent".
During Clinton's final term as governor,
Arkansas performed its first executions since 1964 (the death penalty had been reinstated in 1976). As Governor, he oversaw the
first four executions carried out by the state of Arkansas since the death penalty was reinstated there in 1976: one by
electric chair
An electric chair is a device used to execute an individual by electrocution. When used, the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes fastened on the head and leg. This execution method, ...
and three by
lethal injection
Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium solution) for the express purpose of causing rapid death. The main application for this procedure is capital puni ...
. To draw attention to his stance on capital punishment, Clinton flew home to Arkansas mid-campaign in 1992, in order to affirm in person that the controversial execution of
Ricky Ray Rector
Ricky Ray Rector (January 12, 1950 – January 24, 1992) was an American convicted murderer who was executed for the 1981 murder of police officer Robert Martin in Conway, Arkansas. After killing a man in a restaurant and fleeing, Rector spent thr ...
, would go forward as scheduled.
1988 Democratic presidential primaries
In 1987, the media speculated that Clinton would enter the presidential race after incumbent
New York governor
The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has a ...
Mario Cuomo
Mario Matthew Cuomo (, ; June 15, 1932 – January 1, 2015) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 52nd governor of New York for three terms, from 1983 to 1994. A member of the Democratic Party, Cuomo previously served as t ...
declined to run and Democratic front-runner
Gary Hart
Gary Warren Hart (''né'' Hartpence; born November 28, 1936) is an American politician, diplomat, and lawyer. He was the front-runner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination until he dropped out amid revelations of extramarital affairs. ...
withdrew owing to revelations of multiple marital infidelities. Clinton decided to remain as Arkansas governor (following consideration for the potential candidacy of Hillary for governor, initially favored—but ultimately vetoed—by the First Lady).
David Maraniss
David Maraniss ( ; born 1949) is an American journalist and author, currently serving as an associate editor for ''The Washington Post''.
Career
''The Washington Post'' assigned Maraniss the job of biographer for their coverage of 2008 president ...
, ''First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton'' (New York: Random House, 1996; ). For the nomination, Clinton endorsed
Massachusetts governor
The governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the chief executive officer of the government of Massachusetts. The governor is the head of the state cabinet and the commander-in-chief of the commonwealth's military forces.
Massachusetts ...
Michael Dukakis
Michael Stanley Dukakis (; born November 3, 1933) is an American retired lawyer and politician who served as governor of Massachusetts from 1975 to 1979 and again from 1983 to 1991. He is the longest-serving governor in Massachusetts history a ...
. He gave the nationally televised opening night address at the
1988 Democratic National Convention
The 1988 Democratic National Convention was held at The Omni in Atlanta, Georgia, from July 18 to 21, 1988, to select candidates for the 1988 presidential election. At the convention Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts was nominated for pre ...
, but his speech, which was 33 minutes long and twice the length it was expected to be, was criticized for being too long and poorly delivered. Clinton presented himself both as a moderate and as a member of the New Democrat wing of the Democratic Party, and he headed the moderate Democratic Leadership Council in 1990 and 1991.
Presidential campaigns
1992
In the first primary contest, the
Iowa Caucus
The Iowa caucuses are biennial electoral events for members of the Democratic and Republican parties in the U.S. state of Iowa. Unlike primary elections in most other U.S. states, where registered voters go to polling places to cast ballot ...
, Clinton finished a distant third to Iowa senator
Tom Harkin
Thomas Richard Harkin (born November 19, 1939) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as a United States senator from Iowa from 1985 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously was the U.S. representative for Iowa' ...
. During the campaign for the
New Hampshire primary
The New Hampshire presidential primary is the first in a series of nationwide party primary elections and the second party contest (the first being the Iowa caucuses) held in the United States every four years as part of the process of choosi ...
, reports surfaced that Clinton had engaged in an extramarital affair with
Gennifer Flowers
Gennifer Flowers (born January 24, 1950) is an American author, singer, model, actress, former State of Arkansas employee, and former TV journalist. In January 1998, President Bill Clinton testified under oath that he had a sexual encounter wit ...
. Clinton fell far behind former Massachusetts senator
Paul Tsongas
Paul Efthemios Tsongas (; February 14, 1941 – January 18, 1997) was an American politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1979 until 1985 and in the United States House of Representatives from 1975 until 197 ...
in the New Hampshire polls.
Following
Super Bowl XXVI
Super Bowl XXVI was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Washington Redskins and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Buffalo Bills to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion ...
, Clinton and his wife Hillary went on ''
60 Minutes
''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique styl ...
'' to rebuff the charges. Their television appearance was a calculated risk, but Clinton regained several delegates. He finished second to Tsongas in the
New Hampshire primary
The New Hampshire presidential primary is the first in a series of nationwide party primary elections and the second party contest (the first being the Iowa caucuses) held in the United States every four years as part of the process of choosi ...
, but after trailing badly in the polls and coming within single digits of winning, the media viewed it as a victory. News outlets labeled him "The Comeback Kid" for earning a firm second-place finish.
Winning the big prizes of Florida and Texas and many of the
Southern primaries on
Super Tuesday
Super Tuesday is the United States presidential primary election day in February or March when the greatest number of U.S. states hold primary elections and caucuses. Approximately one-third of all delegates to the presidential nominating co ...
gave Clinton a sizable delegate lead. However, former California governor
Jerry Brown
Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of S ...
was scoring victories and Clinton had yet to win a significant contest outside his native South.
With no major Southern state remaining, Clinton targeted New York, which had many delegates. He scored a resounding victory in New York City, shedding his image as a regional candidate.
Having been transformed into the consensus candidate, he secured the Democratic Party nomination, finishing with a victory in Jerry Brown's home state of California.
![Clinton family](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Clinton_family.jpg)
During the campaign, questions of
conflict of interest
A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...
regarding state business and the politically powerful
Rose Law Firm
Rose Law Firm is an American law firm headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas.
It dates its origins to November 1, 1820, sixteen years before Arkansas statehood, when Robert Crittenden, born 1797, and Chester Ashley, born 1791, entered into an ...
, at which Hillary Rodham Clinton was a partner, arose. Clinton argued the questions were moot because all transactions with the state had been deducted before determining Hillary's firm pay. Further concern arose when Bill Clinton announced that, with Hillary, voters would be getting two presidents "for the price of one".
Clinton was still the governor of Arkansas while campaigning for U.S. president, and he returned to his home state to see that
Ricky Ray Rector
Ricky Ray Rector (January 12, 1950 – January 24, 1992) was an American convicted murderer who was executed for the 1981 murder of police officer Robert Martin in Conway, Arkansas. After killing a man in a restaurant and fleeing, Rector spent thr ...
would be executed. After killing a police officer and a civilian, Rector shot himself in the head, leading to what his lawyers said was a state where he could still talk but did not understand the idea of death. According to both Arkansas state law and federal law, a seriously mentally impaired inmate cannot be executed. The courts disagreed with the allegation of grave mental impairment and allowed the execution. Clinton's return to Arkansas for the execution was framed in an article for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' as a possible political move to counter "soft on crime" accusations.
George Stephanopoulos
George Robert Stephanopoulos ( el, Γεώργιος Στεφανόπουλος ; born February 10, 1961) is an American television host, political commentator, and former Democratic advisor. Stephanopoulos currently is a coanchor with Robin Robe ...
, ''All Too Human: A Political Education'', 1999,
Bush's
approval ratings
An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll (although strictly a poll is an actual election) is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions ...
were around 80 percent during the
Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...
, and he was described as unbeatable. When Bush compromised with Democrats to try to lower federal deficits, he reneged on his
promise not to raise taxes, which hurt his approval rating. Clinton repeatedly condemned Bush for making a promise he failed to keep.
By election time, the economy was souring and Bush saw his approval rating plummet to just slightly over 40 percent.
Finally, conservatives were previously united by anti-communism, but with the end of the Cold War, the party lacked a uniting issue. When
Pat Buchanan
Patrick Joseph Buchanan (; born November 2, 1938) is an American paleoconservative political commentator, columnist, politician, and broadcaster. Buchanan was an assistant and special consultant to U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, an ...
and Pat Robertson addressed Christian themes at the 1992 Republican National Convention, Republican National Convention—with Bush criticizing Democrats for omitting God from their platform—many moderates were alienated. Clinton then pointed to his moderate, "New Democrat" record as governor of Arkansas, though some on the more liberal side of the party remained suspicious. Many Democrats who had supported Ronald Reagan and Bush in previous elections switched their support to Clinton.
Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore, toured the country during the final weeks of the campaign, shoring up support and pledging a "new beginning".
On March 26, 1992, during a Democratic Fundraising, fund raiser of the presidential campaign, Robert Rafsky confronted then Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas and asked what he was going to do about AIDS, to which Clinton replied, "I feel your pain." The televised exchange led to AIDS becoming an issue in the 1992 presidential election. On April 4, then candidate Clinton met with members of ACT UP and other leading AIDS advocates to discuss his AIDS agenda and agreed to make a major AIDS policy speech, to have people with HIV speak to the Democratic National Convention, Democratic Convention, and to sign onto the AIDS United Action five point plan.
![ElectoralCollege1992](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/ElectoralCollege1992.svg)
Clinton won the
1992 presidential election (370 electoral votes) against Republican incumbent George H. W. Bush (168 electoral votes) and billionaire populism, populist
Ross Perot
Henry Ross Perot (; June 27, 1930 – July 9, 2019) was an American business magnate, billionaire, politician and philanthropist. He was the founder and chief executive officer of Electronic Data Systems and Perot Systems. He ran an inde ...
(zero electoral votes), who ran as an independent on a platform that focused on domestic issues. Bush's steep decline in public approval was a significant part of Clinton's success.
Clinton's victory in the election ended twelve years of Republican rule of the White House and twenty of the previous twenty-four years. The election gave Democrats full control of the United States Congress,
the first time one party controlled both the executive and legislative branches since Democrats held the 96th United States Congress during the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
According to Seymour Martin Lipset, the 1992 election had several unique characteristics. Voters felt that economic conditions were worse than they actually were, which harmed Bush. A rare event was the presence of a strong third-party candidate. Liberals launched a backlash against 12 years of a conservative White House. The chief factor was Clinton's uniting his party, and winning over a number of heterogeneous groups.
1996
![ElectoralCollege1996](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/ElectoralCollege1996.svg)
In the 1996 United States presidential election, 1996 presidential election, Clinton was re-elected, receiving 49.2 percent of the popular vote over Republican Bob Dole (40.7 percent of the popular vote) and Reform Party of the United States of America, Reform candidate Ross Perot (8.4 percent of the popular vote). Clinton received 379 of the Electoral College (United States), Electoral College votes, with Dole receiving 159 electoral votes. With his victory, he became the first Democrat to win two consecutive presidential elections since
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
.
Presidency (1993–2001)
Clinton's "third way" of moderate liberalism built up the nation's fiscal health and put the nation on a firm footing abroad amid globalization and the development of anti-American terrorist organizations.
During his presidency, Presidency of Bill Clinton#Legislation and programs, Clinton advocated for a wide variety of legislation and programs, most of which were enacted into law or implemented by the executive branch. His policies, particularly the
North American Free Trade Agreement
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA ; es, Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte, TLCAN; french: Accord de libre-échange nord-américain, ALÉNA) was an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States that crea ...
and welfare reform, have been attributed to a centrism, centrist
Third Way
The Third Way is a centrist political position that attempts to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of centre-right economic policies with centre-left social policies. The Third Way was born from a ...
philosophy of governance. His policy of fiscal conservatism helped to reduce deficits on budgetary matters.
Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history.
The
Congressional Budget Office
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a federal agency within the legislative branch of the United States government that provides budget and economic information to Congress.
Inspired by California's Legislative Analyst's Office that manages ...
reported budget surpluses of $69 billion in 1998, $126 billion in 1999, and $236 billion in 2000, during the last three years of Clinton's presidency. Over the years of the recorded surplus, the gross national debt rose each year. At the end of the fiscal year (September 30) for each of the years a surplus was recorded, The U.S. treasury reported a gross debt of $5.413 trillion in 1997, $5.526 trillion in 1998, $5.656 trillion in 1999, and $5.674 trillion in 2000. Over the same period, the Office of Management and Budget reported an end of year (December 31) gross debt of $5.369 trillion in 1997, $5.478 trillion in 1998, $5.606 in 1999, and $5.629 trillion in 2000. At the end of his presidency, the Clintons moved to 15 Old House Lane in Chappaqua, New York, in order to satisfy a residency requirement for his wife to win election as a U.S. Senator from New York.
First term (1993–1997)
![Dan Hadani collection (990040377410205171)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Dan_Hadani_collection_%28990040377410205171%29.jpg)
After Presidential transition of Bill Clinton, his presidential transition, Clinton was First inauguration of Bill Clinton, inaugurated as the 42nd president of the United States on January 20, 1993. Clinton was physically exhausted at the time, and had an inexperienced staff. His high levels of public support dropped in the first few weeks, as he made a series of mistakes. His first choice for attorney general had not paid her taxes on babysitters and was forced to withdraw. The second appointee also withdrew for the same reason. Clinton had repeatedly promised to encourage gays in the military service, despite what he knew to be the strong opposition of the military leadership. He tried anyway, and was publicly opposed by the top generals, and forced by Congress to a compromise position of "Don't ask, don't tell" whereby gays could serve if and only if they kept it secret. He devised a $16-billion stimulus package primarily to aid inner-city programs desired by liberals, but it was defeated by a Republican filibuster in the Senate. His popularity at the 100 day mark of his term was the lowest of any president at that point.
Public opinion did support one liberal program, and Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which required large employers to allow employees to take unpaid leave for pregnancy or a serious medical condition. This action had bipartisan support, and was popular with the public.
Two days after taking office, on January 22, 1993—the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in ''Roe v. Wade''—Clinton reversed restrictions on domestic and international family planning programs that had been imposed by Reagan and Bush. Clinton said abortion should be kept "safe, legal, and rare"—a slogan that had been suggested by political scientist Samuel L. Popkin and first used by Clinton in December 1991, while campaigning. During the eight years of the Clinton administration, the abortion rate declined by 18 percent.
On February 15, 1993, Clinton made his first address to the nation, announcing his plan to raise taxes to close a budget deficit. Two days later, in a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress, Clinton unveiled his economic plan. The plan focused on reducing the deficit rather than on cutting taxes for the middle class, which had been high on his campaign agenda. Clinton's advisers pressured him to raise taxes, based on the theory that a smaller federal budget deficit would reduce bond interest rates.
President Clinton's attorney general Janet Reno authorized the FBI's use of armored vehicles to deploy tear gas into the buildings of the Branch Davidian community near Waco, Texas, in hopes of ending a Waco siege, 51 day siege. During the operation on April 19, 1993, the buildings caught fire and 75 of the residents died, including 24 children. The raid had originally been planned by the Bush administration; Clinton had played no role.
In August, Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which passed Congress without a Republican vote. It cut taxes for 15million low-income families, made tax cuts available to 90 percent of small businesses, and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2 percent of taxpayers. Additionally, it mandated that the budget be balanced over many years through the implementation of spending restraints.
![Bill Clinton Al Gore](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Bill_Clinton_Al_Gore.jpg)
On September 22, 1993, Clinton made a major speech to Congress regarding Clinton health care plan, a health care reform plan; the program aimed at achieving universal coverage through a national health care plan. This was one of the most prominent items on Clinton's legislative agenda and resulted from a task force headed by Hillary Clinton. The plan was well received in political circles, but it was eventually doomed by well-organized lobby opposition from conservatives, the American Medical Association, and the health insurance industry. However, Clinton biographer John F. Harris said the program failed because of a lack of coordination within the White House.
Despite the Democratic majority in Congress, the effort to create a national health care system ultimately died when compromise legislation by George J. Mitchell failed to gain a majority of support in August 1994. The failure of the bill was the first major legislative defeat of the Clinton administration.
On November 30, 1993, Clinton signed into law the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, Brady Bill, which mandated federal background checks on people who purchase firearms in the United States. The law also imposed a five-day waiting period on purchases, until the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, NICS system was implemented in 1998. He also expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, a subsidy for low-income workers.
In December of the same year, allegations by Arkansas state troopers Larry Patterson and Roger Perry were first reported by David Brock in ''The American Spectator.'' In the affair later known as "Troopergate (Bill Clinton), Troopergate", the officers alleged that they had arranged sexual liaisons for Clinton back when he was governor of Arkansas. The story mentioned a woman named ''Paula'', a reference to Paula Jones. Brock later apologized to Clinton, saying the article was politically motivated "bad journalism", and that "the troopers were greedy and had slimy motives".
![Bill Clinton, Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat at the White House 1993-09-13](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Bill_Clinton%2C_Yitzhak_Rabin%2C_Yasser_Arafat_at_the_White_House_1993-09-13.jpg)
That month, Clinton implemented a Department of Defense directive known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", which allowed gay men and women to serve in the armed services provided they kept their sexual preferences a secret. The Act forbade the military from inquiring about an individual's sexual orientation. The policy was developed as a compromise after Clinton's proposal to allow gays to serve openly in the military met staunch opposition from prominent Congressional Republicans and Democrats, including senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Sam Nunn (D-GA). According to David Mixner, Clinton's support for the compromise led to a heated dispute with Vice President Al Gore, who felt that "the President should lift the ban ... even though [his executive order] was sure to be overridden by the Congress".
Some gay-rights advocates criticized Clinton for not going far enough and accused him of making his campaign promise to get votes and contributions. Their position was that Clinton should have integrated the military by executive order, noting that President Harry S. Truman used executive order to racially desegregate the armed forces. Clinton's defenders argued that an executive order might have prompted the Senate to write the exclusion of gays into law, potentially making it harder to integrate the military in the future.
Later in his presidency, in 1999, Clinton criticized the way the policy was implemented, saying he did not think any serious person could say it was not "out of whack". The policy remained controversial, and was finally Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, repealed in 2011, removing open sexual orientation as a reason for dismissal from the armed forces.
On January 1, 1994, Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law.
Throughout his first year in office, Clinton consistently supported ratification of the treaty by the U.S. Senate. Clinton and most of his allies in the Democratic Leadership Committee strongly supported free trade measures; there remained, however, strong disagreement within the party. Opposition came chiefly from anti-trade Republicans, protectionist Democrats and supporters of Ross Perot. The bill passed the house with 234 votes in favor and 200 votes opposed (132 Republicans and 102 Democrats in favor; 156 Democrats, 43 Republicans, and one independent opposed). The treaty was then ratified by the Senate and signed into law by the president.
On July 29, 1994, the Clinton administration launched the first official White House website, whitehouse.gov.
The site was followed with three more versions, with the final version being launched on July 21, 2000.
The White House website was part of a wider movement of the Clinton administration toward web-based communication. According to Robert Longley, "Clinton and Gore were responsible for pressing almost all federal agencies, the U.S. court system and the U.S. military onto the Internet, thus opening up America's government to more of America's citizens than ever before. On July 17, 1996, Clinton issued Executive Order 13011—Federal Information Technology, ordering the heads of all federal agencies to utilize information technology fully to make the information of the agency easily accessible to the public."
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, Omnibus Crime Bill, which Clinton signed into law in September 1994, made many changes to U.S. crime and law enforcement legislation including the expansion of the death penalty to include crimes not resulting in death, such as running a large-scale drug enterprise. During Clinton's re-election campaign he said, "My 1994 crime bill expanded the death penalty for drug kingpins, murderers of federal law enforcement officers, and nearly 60 additional categories of violent felons." It also included a subsection of Federal Assault Weapons Ban, assault weapons ban for a ten-year period.
After two years of Democratic Party control, the Democrats lost control of Congress to the Republicans in the 1994 United States House of Representatives elections, mid-term elections in 1994, for the first time in forty years.
A speech delivered by President Bill Clinton at the December 6, 1995 White House Conference on HIV/AIDS projected that a cure for AIDS and a vaccine to prevent further infection would be developed. The President focused on his administration's accomplishments and efforts related to the epidemic, including an accelerated drug-approval process. He also condemned homophobia and discrimination against people with HIV. Clinton announced three new initiatives: creating a special working group to coordinate AIDS research throughout the federal government; convening public health experts to develop an action plan that integrates HIV prevention with substance abuse prevention; and launching a new effort by the United States Department of Justice, Department of Justice to ensure that health care facilities provide equal access to people with HIV and AIDS.
![Coat of Arms of Bill Clinton](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Coat_of_Arms_of_Bill_Clinton.svg)
On September 21, 1996, Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage for federal purposes as the legal union of one man and one woman; the legislation allowed individual states to refuse to recognize gay marriages that were performed in other states. Paul Yandura, speaking for the White House gay and lesbian liaison office, said Clinton's signing DOMA "was a political decision that they made at the time of a re-election". In defense of his actions, Clinton has said that DOMA was intended to "head off an attempt to send a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to the states", a possibility he described as highly likely in the context of a "very reactionary Congress". Administration spokesman Richard Socarides said, "the alternatives we knew were going to be far worse, and it was time to move on and get the president re-elected."
Clinton himself said DOMA was something "which the Republicans put on the ballot to try to get the base vote for Bush up, I think it's obvious that something had to be done to try to keep the Republican Congress from presenting that"; Others were more critical. The veteran gay rights and gay marriage activist Evan Wolfson has called these claims "historic revisionism".
Despite this, it has been noted that other than a brief written response to a Reader’s Digest that questioned whether he agreed with it, Clinton had made no documented reference to the issue of gay marriage until May 1996. In a July 2, 2011, editorial ''The New York Times'' opined, "The Defense of Marriage Act was enacted in 1996 as an election-year wedge issue, signed by President Bill Clinton in one of his worst policy moments." Ultimately, in United States v. Windsor, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down DOMA in June 2013.
Despite DOMA, Clinton was the first president to select openly gay persons for administrative positions, and he is generally credited as being the first president to publicly champion gay rights.
During his presidency, Clinton issued two substantially controversial executive orders on behalf of gay rights, the first lifting the ban on security clearances for LGBT federal employees and the second outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation in the federal civilian workforce. Under Clinton's leadership, federal funding for HIV/AIDS research, prevention and treatment more than doubled. Clinton also pushed for passing hate crimes laws for gays and for the private sector Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which, buoyed by his lobbying, failed to pass the Senate by a single vote in 1996. Advocacy for these issues, paired with the politically unpopular nature of the gay rights movement at the time, led to enthusiastic support for Clinton's election and reelection by the Human Rights Campaign.
Clinton came out for gay marriage in July 2009 and urged the Supreme Court to overturn DOMA in 2013. He was later honored by GLAAD for his prior pro-gay stances and his reversal on DOMA.
The 1996 United States campaign finance controversy was an alleged effort by China to influence the domestic policies of the United States, before and during the Clinton administration, and involved the fundraising practices of the administration itself.
Despite the evidence,
the Government of China, Chinese government denied all accusations.
As part of a 1996 initiative to curb Illegal immigration to the United States, illegal immigration, Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) on September 30, 1996. Appointed by Clinton, the History of laws concerning immigration and naturalization in the United States#1990s, U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform recommended reducing legal immigration from about 800,000 people a year to about 550,000.
Ken Gormley (academic), Ken Gormley, author of ''The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr'', reveals in his book that Clinton narrowly escaped possible assassination in the Philippines in November 1996. During his visit to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Manila, while he was on his way to meet with a senior member of the Philippine government, Clinton was saved from danger minutes before his motorcade was scheduled to drive over a bridge charged with a timed improvised explosive device (IED).
According to officials, the IED was large enough to "blow up the entire presidential motorcade".
Details of the plot were revealed to Gormley by Lewis C. Merletti, former member of the presidential protection detail and Director of the United States Secret Service, Secret Service. Intelligence officers intercepted a radio transmission indicating there was a wedding cake under a bridge.
This alerted Merletti and others as Clinton's motorcade was scheduled to drive over a major bridge in downtown Manila.
Once more, the word "wedding" was the code name used by a terrorist group for a past assassination attempt.
Merletti wanted to reroute the motorcade, but the alternate route would add forty-five minutes to the drive time. Clinton was very angry, as he was already late for the meeting, but following the advice of the secret service possibly saved his life. Two other bombs had been discovered in Manila earlier in the week so the threat level that day was high. Security personnel at the Manila International Airport uncovered several grenades and a timing device in a travel bag.
Officials also discovered a bomb near a major U.S. naval base.
The president was scheduled to visit both these locations later in the week. An intense investigation took place into the events in Manila and it was discovered that the group behind the bridge bomb was a Saudi terrorist group in Afghanistan known as al-Qaeda and the plot was masterminded by Osama bin Laden.
Until recently, this thwarted assassination attempt was never made public and remained top secret. Only top members of the U.S. intelligence community were aware of these events.
Second term (1997–2001)
In the January 1997, State of the Union address, Clinton proposed a new initiative to provide health coverage to up to five million children. Senators Ted Kennedy—a Democrat—and Orrin Hatch—a Republican—teamed up with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her staff in 1997, and succeeded in passing legislation forming the
State Children's Health Insurance Program
The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) – formerly known as the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) – is a program administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provides matching funds to ...
(SCHIP), the largest (successful) health care reform in the years of the Clinton Presidency. That year, Hillary Clinton shepherded through Congress the Adoption and Safe Families Act and two years later she succeeded in helping pass the Foster Care Independence Act. Bill Clinton negotiated the passage of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 by the Republican Congress. In October 1997, he announced he was getting hearing aids, due to hearing loss attributed to his age, and his time spent as a musician in his youth. In 1999, he signed into law the Financial Services Modernization Act also known as the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which repealed the part of the Glass–Steagall Act that had prohibited a bank from offering a full range of Investment banking, investment, commercial banking, and insurance services since its enactment in 1933.
Investigations
In November 1993, David Hale (Whitewater), David Hale—the source of criminal allegations against Bill Clinton in the Whitewater controversy—alleged that while governor of Arkansas, Clinton pressured Hale to provide an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, the Clintons' partner in the Whitewater land deal.
A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation resulted in convictions against the McDougals for their role in the Whitewater project, but the Clintons themselves were never charged, and Clinton maintains his and his wife's innocence in the affair. Investigations Robert B. Fiske and Ken Starr found insufficient to evidence to prosecute the Clintons.
The White House FBI files controversy of June 1996 arose concerning improper access by the White House to FBI security-clearance documents. Craig Livingstone, head of the White House Office of Personnel Security, improperly requested, and received from the FBI, background report files without asking permission of the subject individuals; many of these were employees of former Republican administrations. In March 2000, Independent Counsel Robert Ray (prosecutor), Robert Ray determined there was no credible evidence of any crime. Ray's report further stated, "there was no substantial and credible evidence that any senior White House official was involved" in seeking the files.
On May 19, 1993, Clinton fired seven employees of the White House Travel Office. This caused the White House travel office controversy even though the travel office staff served at the pleasure of the president and could be At-will employment, dismissed without cause. The White House responded to the controversy by claiming that the firings were done in response to financial improprieties that had been revealed by a brief FBI investigation. Critics contended that the firings had been done to allow friends of the Clintons to take over the travel business and the involvement of the FBI was unwarranted. The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee issued a report which accused the Clinton administration of having obstructed their efforts to investigate the affair. Special counsel Robert Fiske said that Hillary Clinton was involved in the firing and gave "factually false" testimony to the GAO, congress, and the independent counsel. However Fiske said there was not enough evidence to prosecute.
Impeachment and acquittal
![Senate in session](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Senate_in_session.jpg)
After Impeachment inquiry against Bill Clinton, a House inquiry, Clinton was impeachment, impeached on December 19, 1998, by the House of Representatives. The House voted 228–206 to impeach him for perjury to a grand jury
and voted 221–212 to impeach him for obstruction of justice.
Clinton was only the second U.S. president (after
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Dem ...
) to be impeached. Impeachment proceedings were based on allegations that Clinton had illegally lied about and covered up his relationship with 22-year-old White House (and later United States Department of Defense, Department of Defense) employee
Monica Lewinsky
Monica Samille Lewinsky (born July 23, 1973) is an American activist and writer. President Bill Clinton admitted to having an affair with Lewinsky while she worked at the White House as an intern in 1995 and 1996. The affair, and its repercus ...
. After the Starr Report was submitted to the House providing what it termed "substantial and credible information that President Clinton Committed Acts that May Constitute Grounds for an Impeachment", the House began impeachment hearings against Clinton before the United States midterm election, mid-term elections. To hold impeachment proceedings, the Republican leadership called a lame-duck session in December 1998.
![Donald Trump and Bill Clinton](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Donald_Trump_and_Bill_Clinton.jpg)
While the House Judiciary Committee hearings ended in a straight party-line vote, there was lively debate on the House floor. The two charges passed in the House (largely with Republican support, but with a handful of Democratic votes as well) were for perjury and obstruction of justice. The perjury charge arose from Clinton's testimony before a grand jury that had been convened to investigate perjury he may have committed in his sworn deposition during ''Clinton v. Jones, Jones v. Clinton,'' Paula Jones's sexual harassment lawsuit. The obstruction charge was based on his actions to conceal his relationship with Lewinsky before and after that deposition.
The Senate later acquitted Clinton of both charges.
The Senate refused to meet to hold an impeachment trial before the end of the old term, so the trial was held over until the next Congress. Clinton was represented by Washington law firm Williams & Connolly. The Senate finished a twenty-one-day trial on February 12, 1999, with the vote of 55 not guilty/45 guilty on the perjury charge
and 50 not guilty/50 guilty on the obstruction of justice charge.
Both votes fell short of the constitutional two-thirds majority requirement to convict and remove an officeholder. The final vote was generally along party lines, with no Democrats voting guilty, and only a handful of Republicans voting not guilty.
On January 19, 2001, Clinton's law license was suspended for five years after he acknowledged to an Arkansas circuit court that he had engaged in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice in the ''Jones'' case.
Pardons and commutations
Clinton Bill Clinton pardon controversy, issued 141 pardons and 36 commutations on his last day in office on January 20, 2001.
Controversy surrounded Marc Rich and allegations that Hillary Clinton's brother, Hugh Edwin Rodham, Hugh Rodham, accepted payments in return for influencing the president's decision-making regarding the pardons. Federal prosecutor Mary Jo White was appointed to investigate the pardon of Rich. She was later replaced by then-Republican James Comey. The investigation found no wrongdoing on Clinton's part. Clinton also pardoned 4 defendants in the Whitewater Scandal, Chris Wade (real estate broker), Chris Wade, Susan McDougal, Stephen Smith (Whitewater), Stephen Smith, and Robert W. Palmer, all of whom had ties to Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas. Former Clinton HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, was also among Clinton's pardons.
Campaign finance controversies
In February 1997 it was discovered upon documents being released by the Clinton Administration that 938 people had stayed at the White House and that 821 of them had made donations to the
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
and got the opportunity to stay in the Lincoln bedroom as a result of the donations.
Some donors included
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spie ...
, Tom Hanks, Jane Fonda, and Judy Collins. Top donors also got golf games and morning jogs with Clinton as a result of the contributions.
Janet Reno was called on to investigate the matter by Trent Lott, but she refused.
In 1996, it was found that several Chinese foreigners made contributions to Clinton's reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee with the backing of the People's Republic of China. Some of them also attempted to donate to Clinton's defense fund. This violated United States law forbidding non-American citizens from making campaign contributions. Clinton and Al Gore also allegedly met with the foreign donors. A Republican investigation led by Fred Thompson found that Clinton was targeted by the Chinese government. However, Democratic senators Joe Lieberman and John Glenn said that the evidence showed that China only targeted congressional elections and not presidential elections.
Military and foreign affairs
Somalia
American troops had first entered Somalia during the Foreign policy of the George H. W. Bush administration, Bush administration in response to a humanitarian crisis and Somali Civil War, civil war. Though initially involved to assist humanitarian efforts, the Clinton administration shifted the objectives set out in the mission and began pursuing a policy of attempting to neutralize Somali warlords. In 1993, during the Battle of Mogadishu (1993), Battle of Mogadishu, MH-60 Black Hawk, two U.S. helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled grenade attacks to their tail rotors, trapping soldiers behind enemy lines. This resulted in an urban battle that killed 18 American soldiers, wounded 73 others, and resulted in one being taken prisoner.
Television news programs depicted the supporters of warlord Mohammed Aidid desecrating the corpses of troops.
The backlash resulting from the incident prompted in a drop in support for American intervention in the country and coincided with a more cautious use of troops throughout the rest of the Clinton administration.
Following a subsequent national security policy review, U.S. forces were withdrawn from Somalia and later conflicts were approached with fewer soldiers on the ground.
Rwanda
In April 1994, Rwandan genocide, genocide broke out in Rwanda. Intelligence reports indicate that Clinton was aware a "final solution to eliminate all Tutsis" was underway, long before the administration publicly used the word "genocide." Fearing a reprisal of the events in Somalia the previous year, Clinton chose not to intervene. Clinton has called his failure to intervene one of his main foreign policy failings, saying "I don't think we could have ended the violence, but I think we could have cut it down. And I regret it."
Bosnia and Herzegovina
In 1993 and 1994, Clinton pressured Western European leaders to adopt a strong military policy against Bosnian Serbs during the Bosnian War. This strategy faced staunch opposition from the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
, NATO allies, and Congressional Republicans, leading Clinton to adopt a more diplomatic approach. In 1995, U.S. and NATO aircraft Operation Deliberate Force, bombed Bosnian Serb targets to halt attacks on UN safe zones and pressure them into a peace accord that would end the Bosnian war. Clinton deployed U.S. peacekeepers to Bosnia in late 1995, to uphold the subsequent Dayton Agreement.
Irish peace talks
![President Bill Clinton and Gerry Adams](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/President_Bill_Clinton_and_Gerry_Adams.jpg)
In 1992, before his presidency, Clinton proposed sending a peace envoy to Northern Ireland, but this was dropped to avoid tensions with the British government. In November 1995, in a ceasefire during the Troubles, Clinton became the first president to visit Northern Ireland, examining both of the two divided communities of Belfast. Despite Unionism in Ireland, unionist criticism, Clinton used his visit as a way to negotiate an end to the violent conflict, playing a key role in the Northern Ireland peace process, peace talks that produced the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
Iran
Clinton sought to continue the Bush administration's policy of limiting Iranian influence in the Middle East, which he laid out in the dual containment strategy. In 1994, Clinton declared that Iran was a "State Sponsors of Terrorism, state sponsor of terrorism" and a "rogue state," marking the first time that an American President used that term. Subsequent executive orders heavily sanctioned Iran's oil industry and banned almost all trade between U.S. companies and the Iranian government. In February 1996, the Clinton administration agreed to pay Iran US$131.8million (equivalent to $ million in ) in settlement to discontinue a case brought by Iran in 1989 against the U.S. in the International Court of Justice after the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser. Following the 1997 election of reformist president Mohammad Khatami, the administration eased sanctions.
Iraq
In Clinton's 1998 State of the Union Address, he warned Congress that Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
was building an arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 on October 31, 1998, which instituted a policy of "regime change" against Iraq, though it explicitly stated it did not provide for direct intervention on the part of American military forces. The administration then launched a four-day bombing campaign named Operation Desert Fox, lasting from December 16 to 19, 1998. At the end of this operation Clinton announced that "So long as Saddam remains in power, he will remain a threat to his people, his region, and the world. With our allies, we must pursue a strategy to contain him and to constrain his weapons of mass destruction program, while working toward the day Iraq has a government willing to live at peace with its people and with its neighbors." American and British aircraft in the Iraq no-fly zones attacked hostile Iraqi air defenses 166 times in 1999 and 78 times in 2000.
Osama bin Laden
Capturing Osama bin Laden was an objective of the U.S. government during the Clinton presidency (and continued to be until Killing of Osama bin Laden, bin Laden's death in 2011). Despite claims by Mansoor Ijaz and Sudanese officials that the Sudanese government had offered to arrest and extradite bin Laden, and that U.S. authorities rejected each offer,
the 9/11 Commission Report stated that "we have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim."
In response to a 1996 State Department warning about bin Laden and the 1998 United States embassy bombings, 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa by al-Qaeda (which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans), Clinton ordered several military missions to capture or kill bin Laden, all of which were unsuccessful. In August 1998, Clinton Operation Infinite Reach, ordered cruise missile strikes on terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan, targeting the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, which was suspected of assisting bin Laden in making chemical weapons, and bin Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.
Sudan
On August 20, 1998, Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes on Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan. The factory was destroyed by the missile attack it resulted in the death one employee and wounding 11 other people. Clinton's justification for the attack was that the factory was manufacturing nerve gas and that the factory has ties to Al-Qaeda. After the destruction of the factory there was a medicine shortage is Sudan due to the plant providing 50 percent of Sudans medicine and the destruction of the plant led to their no supplies of chloroquine a drug which is used to treat malaria. US officials would later acknowledge that there was no evidence the plant was acknowledging manufacturing or storing nerve gas. The attack provoked criticism of Clinton from journalists and academics including Christopher Hitchens, Seymour Hersh, Max Taylor (psychologist), Max Taylor, and others.
Kosovo
![President Clinton is briefed on Kosovo - Flickr - The Central Intelligence Agency](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/President_Clinton_is_briefed_on_Kosovo_-_Flickr_-_The_Central_Intelligence_Agency.jpg)
In the midst of a brutal crackdown on Kosovo Liberation Army, ethnic Albanian separatists in the province of Kosovo by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Clinton authorized the use of U.S. Armed Forces in a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, named Operation Allied Force. The stated reasoning behind the intervention was to stop the ethnic cleansing (and what the Clinton administration labeled genocide) of Albanians by Yugoslav anti-guerilla military units. General Wesley Clark was Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and oversaw the mission. With United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, the bombing campaign ended on June 10, 1999. The resolution placed Kosovo under UN administration and authorized a Kosovo Force, peacekeeping force to be deployed to the region. NATO announced its soldiers all survived combat,
though two died in an Boeing AH-64 Apache, Apache helicopter crash. Journalists in the popular press criticized genocide statements by the Clinton administration as false and greatly exaggerated. Prior to the bombing campaign on March 24, 1999, estimates showed that the number of civilians killed in the over year long Kosovo war, conflict in Kosovo had been approximately 1,800, with critics asserting that little or no evidence existed of genocide. In a post-war inquiry, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe noted "the patterns of the expulsions and the vast increase in lootings, killings, rape, kidnappings and pillage once the NATO air war began on March 24." In 2001, the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, UN-supervised Judiciary of Kosovo, Supreme Court of Kosovo ruled that genocide (the genocidal intent, intent to destroy a people) did not take place, but recognized "a systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments" with the intention being the forceful departure of the Albanian population. The term "ethnic cleansing" was used as an alternative to "genocide" to denote not just ethnically motivated murder but also displacement, though critics charge there is little difference. Slobodan Milošević, the president of Yugoslavia at the time of the atrocities, was Trial of Slobodan Milošević, eventually brought to trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague on charges including crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in the war.
He died in 2006, before the completion of the trial.
China
![Clinton and jiang](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Clinton_and_jiang.jpg)
Clinton aimed to increase trade with China, minimizing import tariffs and offering the country most favoured nation status in 1993, his administration minimized tariff levels in Chinese imports. Clinton initially conditioned extension of this status on Human rights in China, human rights reforms, but ultimately decided to extend the status despite a lack of reform in the specified areas, including free emigration, treatment of prisoners in terms of international human rights, and observation of human rights specified by UN resolutions, among others.
Relations were damaged briefly by the United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, American bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999. Clinton apologized for the bombing, stating it was accidental.
On October 10, 2000, Clinton signed into law the United States–China Relations Act of 2000, which granted permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) trade status to China. The president asserted that free trade would gradually open China to democratic reform.
In encouraging Congress to approve the agreement and China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), Clinton stated that more trade with China would advance America's economic interests, saying that "economically, this agreement is the equivalent of a one-way street. It requires China to open its markets—with a fifth of the world's population, potentially the biggest markets in the world—to both our products and services in unprecedented new ways."
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Clinton attempted to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Secret negotiations mediated by Clinton between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat led to a historic declaration of peace in September 1993, called the Oslo Accords, which were signed at the White House on September 13. The agreement led to the Israel–Jordan peace treaty in 1994 and the Wye River Memorandum in October 1998, however, this did not end the conflict. He brought Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat together at Camp David for the 2000 Camp David Summit, which lasted 14 days in July.
Following the failure of the peace talks, Clinton said Arafat had "missed the opportunity" to facilitate a "just and lasting peace." In his autobiography, Clinton blames Arafat for the collapse of the summit. Following another attempt in December 2000 at Bolling Air Force Base, in which the president offered the The Clinton Parameters, Clinton Parameters, the situation broke down completely after the end of the Taba Summit and with the start of the Second Intifada.
Judicial appointments
![Announcement of Ruth Bader Ginsburg as Nominee for Associate Supreme Court Justice at the White House - NARA - 131493870](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Announcement_of_Ruth_Bader_Ginsburg_as_Nominee_for_Associate_Supreme_Court_Justice_at_the_White_House_-_NARA_-_131493870.jpg)
Clinton appointed two justices to the Supreme Court of the United States, Supreme Court:
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; ; March 15, 1933September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by President ...
in 1993 and
Stephen Breyer
Stephen Gerald Breyer ( ; born August 15, 1938) is a retired American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 until his retirement in 2022. He was nominated by President Bill Clinton, and repl ...
in 1994. Both justices went on to serve until the 2020s, leaving a lasting judicial legacy for President Clinton.
Clinton was the first president in history to appoint more women and minority judges than white male judges to the federal courts.
In his eight years in office, 11.6% of Clinton's court of appeals nominees and 17.4% of his district court nominees were black; 32.8% of his court of appeals nominees and 28.5% of his district court nominees were women.
Public opinion
![Clinton approval rating](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Clinton_approval_rating.png)
Throughout Clinton's first term, his job approval rating fluctuated in the 40s and 50s. In his second term, his rating consistently ranged from the high-50s to the high-60s. After his impeachment proceedings in 1998 and 1999, Clinton's rating reached its highest point. According to a CBS News/''New York Times'' poll, Clinton left office with an approval rating of 68 percent, which matched those of Ronald Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt as the highest ratings for departing presidents in the modern era. Clinton's average Gallup Organization, Gallup poll approval rating for his last quarter in office was 61%, the highest final quarter rating any president has received for fifty years.
Forty-seven percent of the respondents identified themselves as being Clinton supporters.
As he was leaving office, a CNN/''USA Today''/Gallup poll revealed that 45 percent of Americans said they would miss him; 55 percent thought he "would have something worthwhile to contribute and should remain active in public life"; 68 percent thought he would be remembered more for his "involvement in personal scandal" than for "his accomplishments"; and 58 percent answered "No" to the question "Do you generally think Bill Clinton is honest and trustworthy?"
The same percentage said he would be remembered as either "outstanding" or "above average" as a president, while 22 percent said he would be remembered as "below average" or "poor".
ABC News characterized public consensus on Clinton as, "You can't trust him, he's got weak morals and ethics—and he's done a heck of a good job."
In May 2006, a CNN poll comparing Clinton's job performance with that of his successor, George W. Bush, found that a strong majority of respondents said Clinton outperformed Bush in six different areas questioned. Gallup polls in 2007 and 2011 showed that Clinton was regarded by 13 percent of Americans as the greatest president in U.S. history.
In 2014, 18 percent of respondents in a Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll of American voters regarded Clinton as the best president since World War II, making him the third most popular among postwar presidents, behind John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
[Obama Is First As Worst President Since WWII, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; More Voters Say Romney Would Have Been Better](_blank)
Quinnipiac University (July 2, 2014). The same poll showed that just 3% of American voters regarded Clinton as the worst president since World War II.
A 2015 poll by ''The Washington Post'' asked 162 scholars of the American Political Science Association to rank all the U.S. presidents in order of greatness. According to their findings, Clinton ranked eighth overall, with a rating of 70 percent.
Public image
![Bill Clinton 1995 im Parlament in London](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Bill_Clinton_1995_im_Parlament_in_London.jpg)
Clinton was the first baby boomers, baby boomer president. Authors Martin Walker and Bob Woodward stated that Clinton's innovative use of sound bite-ready dialogue, personal charisma, and public perception-oriented campaigning were a major factor in his high public approval ratings. When Clinton played the saxophone on ''The Arsenio Hall Show'', he was described by some religious conservatives as "the MTV president". Opponents sometimes referred to him as "Slick Willie", a nickname which was first applied to him in 1980 by ''Pine Bluff Commercial'' journalist Paul Greenberg (journalist), Paul Greenberg;
[American Frontline:Stories of Bill]
Retrieved May 4, 2015 Greenberg believed that Clinton was abandoning the progressive policies of previous Arkansas Governors such as Winthrop Rockefeller, Dale Bumpers and David Pryor.
The claim "Slick Willie" would last throughout his presidency.
His folksy manner led him to be List of nicknames of United States Presidents, nicknamed Bubba, especially in the South. Since 2000, he has frequently been referred to as "The Big Dog" or "Big Dog". His prominent role in campaigning for President Obama during the 2012 United States presidential election, 2012 presidential election and his widely publicized speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, where he officially nominated Obama and criticized Republican nominee Mitt Romney and Republican policies in detail, earned him the nickname "Explainer-in-Chief".
Clinton drew strong support from the African American community and insisted that the improvement of race relations would be a major theme of his presidency. In 1998, Nobel Prize, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison called Clinton "the first Black president", saying, "Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas".
Morrison noted that Clinton's sex life was scrutinized more than his career accomplishments, and she compared this to the stereotyping and double standards that, she said, blacks typically endure.
Many viewed this comparison as unfair and disparaging both to Clinton and to the African-American community at large. Clinton, a Baptist, has been open about his faith.
Sexual assault and misconduct allegations
Several women have publicly accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct, including rape, harassment, and sexual assault. Additionally, some commentators have characterized Clinton's sexual relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky as predatory or non-consensual, despite the fact that Lewinsky called the relationship consensual at the time. These allegations have been revisited and lent more credence in 2018, in light of the Me Too movement, #MeToo movement, with many commentators and Democratic leaders now saying Clinton should have been compelled to resign after the Lewinsky affair.
In 1994, Paula Jones initiated a Clinton v. Jones, sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton, claiming he had made unwanted advances towards her in 1991; Clinton denied the allegations. In April 1998, the case was initially dismissed by Judge Susan Webber Wright on the grounds that it lacked legal merit.
Jones appealed Webber Wright's ruling, and her suit gained traction following Clinton's admission to having an affair with Monica Lewinsky in August 1998. In 1998, lawyers for Paula Jones released court documents that alleged a pattern of sexual harassment by Clinton when he was Governor of Arkansas. Robert S. Bennett, Clinton's main lawyer for the case, called the filing "a pack of lies" and "an organized campaign to smear the President of the United States" funded by Clinton's political enemies. Clinton later agreed to an out-of-court settlement and paid Jones $850,000.
Bennett said the president made the settlement only so he could end the lawsuit for good and move on with his life.
During the deposition for the Jones lawsuit, which was held at the White House, Clinton Clinton–Lewinsky scandal, denied having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky—a denial that became the basis for an impeachment charge of perjury.
In 1998, Kathleen Willey alleged that Clinton had groping, groped her in a hallway in 1993. An independent counsel determined Willey gave "false information" to the FBI, inconsistent with sworn testimony related to the Jones allegation.
On March 19, 1998, Julie Hiatt Steele, a friend of Willey, released an affidavit, accusing the former White House aide of asking her to lie to corroborate Ms. Willey's account of being sexually groped by Clinton in the Oval Office. An attempt by Kenneth Starr to prosecute Steele for making false statements and obstructing justice ended in a mistrial and Starr declined to seek a retrial after Steele sought an investigation against the former Independent Counsel for prosecutorial misconduct. Linda Tripp's grand jury testimony also differed from Willey's claims regarding inappropriate sexual advances.
Also in 1998, Juanita Broaddrick alleged that Clinton had raped her in the spring of 1978, although she said she did not remember the exact date.
To support her charge, Broaddrick notes that she told multiple witnesses in 1978 she had been raped by Clinton, something these witnesses also state in interviews to the press.
Broaddrick had earlier filed an affidavit denying any "unwelcome sexual advances" and later repeated the denial in a sworn deposition.
In a 1998 NBC interview wherein she detailed the alleged rape, Broaddrick said she had denied (under oath) being raped only to avoid testifying about the ordeal publicly.
The Lewinsky scandal has had an enduring impact on Clinton's legacy, beyond his impeachment in 1998.
In the wake of the #MeToo movement (which shed light on the widespread prevalence of sexual assault and Sexual harassment, harassment, especially in the workplace), various commentators and Democratic political leaders, as well as Lewinsky herself, have revisited their view that the Lewinsky affair was consensual, and instead characterized it as an abuse of power or harassment, in light of the power differential between a president and a 22-year old intern. In 2018, Clinton was asked in several interviews about whether he should have resigned, and he said he had made the right decision in not resigning.
During the 2018 U.S. election, 2018 Congressional elections, ''The New York Times'' alleged that having no Democratic candidate for office asking Clinton to campaign with them was a change that attributed to the revised understanding of the Lewinsky scandal.
However, former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile previously urged Clinton in November 2017 to campaign during the 2018 midterm elections, in spite of New York U.S. senator Kirsten Gillibrand's recent criticism of the Lewinsky scandal.
Alleged affairs
Clinton admitted to having extramarital affairs with singer
Gennifer Flowers
Gennifer Flowers (born January 24, 1950) is an American author, singer, model, actress, former State of Arkansas employee, and former TV journalist. In January 1998, President Bill Clinton testified under oath that he had a sexual encounter wit ...
and
Monica Lewinsky
Monica Samille Lewinsky (born July 23, 1973) is an American activist and writer. President Bill Clinton admitted to having an affair with Lewinsky while she worked at the White House as an intern in 1995 and 1996. The affair, and its repercus ...
. Actress Elizabeth Gracen, Miss Arkansas winner Sally Perdue, and Dolly Kyle Browning all claimed that they had affairs with Clinton during his time as governor of Arkansas. Browning would later sue Clinton,
Bruce Lindsey
Bruce R. Lindsey (born 1950/51) is an American lawyer and non-profit executive. He served in the White House during the Presidency of Bill Clinton. He was named in a lawsuit during the Whitewater controversy, and he testified before a grand jury ...
, Robert S. Bennett, and Jane Mayer alleging they engaged in a conspiracy to attempt to block her from publishing a book loosely based on her relationship with Clinton and tried to defame him. However Browning's lawsuit was dismissed.
Post-presidency (2001–present)
![FEMA - 14697 - Photograph by Ed Edahl taken on 09-05-2005 in Texas](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/FEMA_-_14697_-_Photograph_by_Ed_Edahl_taken_on_09-05-2005_in_Texas.jpg)
Bill Clinton has continued to be active in public life since leaving office in 2001, giving speeches, fundraising, and founding charitable organizations, and has spoken in prime time at every Democratic National Convention.
Activities until 2008 campaign
In 2002, Clinton warned that pre-emptive military action against Iraq would have unwelcome consequences, and later claimed to have opposed the Iraq War from the start (though some dispute this). In 2005, Clinton criticized the Bush administration for its handling of emissions control, while speaking at the United Nations Climate Change conference in Montreal.
The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas, was dedicated in 2004. Clinton released a best-selling autobiography, ''My Life (Bill Clinton autobiography), My Life'', in 2004. In 2007, he released ''Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World'', which also became a The New York Times Best Seller list, ''New York Times'' Best Seller and garnered positive reviews.
![Bush and Clinton](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Bush_and_Clinton.jpg)
In the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, 2004 Asian tsunami, Secretary-General of the United Nations, U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan appointed Clinton to head a relief effort. After Hurricane Katrina, Clinton joined with fellow former president George H. W. Bush to establish the Bush-Clinton Tsunami Fund in January 2005, and the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund in October of that year. As part of the tsunami effort, these two ex-presidents appeared in a Super Bowl XXXIX pre-game show, and traveled to the affected areas. They also spoke together at the funeral of Boris Yeltsin in April 2007.
Based on his philanthropic worldview, Clinton created the William J. Clinton Foundation to address issues of global importance. This foundation includes the Clinton Foundation HIV and AIDS Initiative (CHAI), which strives to combat that disease, and has worked with the Australian government toward that end. The Clinton Foundation, Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), begun by the Clinton Foundation in 2005, attempts to address world problems such as global public health, poverty alleviation and religious and ethnic conflict. In 2005, Clinton announced through his foundation an agreement with manufacturers to stop selling sugary drinks in schools. Clinton's foundation joined with the Large Cities Climate Leadership Group in 2006 to improve cooperation among those cities, and he met with foreign leaders to promote this initiative. The foundation has received donations from many governments all over the world, including Asia and the Middle East.
In 2008, Foundation director Inder Singh (philanthropist), Inder Singh announced deals to reduce the price of anti-malaria drugs by 30 percent in developing nations. Clinton also spoke in favor of California Proposition 87 (2006), California Proposition 87 on energy development, alternative energy, which was voted down.
2008 presidential election
![Bill Clinton 2008 DNC (01) (cropped1)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Bill_Clinton_2008_DNC_%2801%29_%28cropped1%29.jpg)
During the Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2008, 2008 Democratic presidential primary campaign, Clinton vigorously advocated on behalf of his wife, Hillary. Through speaking engagements and fundraisers, he was able to raise $10 million toward her campaign. Some worried that as an ex-president, he was too active on the trail, too negative to Clinton rival Barack Obama, and alienating his supporters at home and abroad.
Many were especially critical of him following his remarks in the South Carolina primary, which Obama won. Later in the 2008 primaries, there was some infighting between Bill and Hillary's staffs, especially in Pennsylvania.
Considering Bill's remarks, many thought he could not rally Hillary supporters behind Obama after Obama won the primary. Such remarks led to apprehension that the party would be split to the detriment of Obama's election. Fears were allayed August 27, 2008, when Clinton enthusiastically endorsed Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, saying all his experience as president assures him that Obama is "ready to lead". After Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign was over, Bill Clinton continued to raise funds to help pay off her campaign debt.
After the 2008 election
File:Obama and Bill Clinton.jpg, Clinton with then-President Barack Obama and Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett in July 2010
File:Prime Minister Modi meets Bill and Hillary Clinton.jpg, Clinton, his wife Hillary Clinton, Hillary, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New York City on September 29, 2014
In 2009, Clinton travelled to North Korea on behalf of two American journalists 2009 imprisonment of American journalists by North Korea, imprisoned there. Euna Lee and Laura Ling had been imprisoned for illegally entering the country from China.
Jimmy Carter had made a similar visit in 1994.
After Clinton met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, Kim issued a pardon.
Since then, Clinton has been assigned many other diplomatic missions. He was named United Nations
Special Envoy
Diplomatic rank is a system of professional and social rank used in the world of diplomacy and international relations. A diplomat's rank determines many ceremonial details, such as the order of precedence at official processions, table seating ...
to Haiti in 2009 following a series of hurricanes which caused $1 billion in damages.
Clinton organized a conference with the Inter-American Development Bank, where a new industrial park was discussed in an effort to "build back better".
In response to the
2010 Haiti earthquake
A disaster, catastrophic Moment magnitude scale, magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest (department), Ouest department, a ...
, U.S. president Barack Obama announced that Clinton and George W. Bush would coordinate efforts to raise funds for Haiti's recovery. Funds began pouring into Haiti, which led to funding becoming available for Caracol Industrial Park in a part of the country unaffected by the earthquake. While Hillary Clinton was in South Korea, she and Cheryl Mills worked to convince SAE-A, a large apparel subcontractor, to invest in Haiti despite the company's deep concerns about plans to raise the minimum wage. In the summer of 2010, the South Korean company signed a contract at the U.S. State Department, ensuring that the new industrial park would have a key tenant.
In 2010, Clinton announced support of, and delivered the keynote address for, the inauguration of NTR plc, NTR, Ireland's first environmental foundation. At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, Clinton gave a widely praised speech nominating Barack Obama.
2016 presidential election and after
File:Bill Clinton (25881799091).jpg, Clinton campaigning at an election rally for his wife Hillary who was running for President of the United States, 2016
File:Bill Clinton DNC July 2016.jpg, Clinton speaking at the 2016 Democratic National Convention
During the
2016 presidential election, Clinton again encouraged voters to support Hillary, and made appearances speaking on the campaign trail. In a series of tweets, then-President-elect Donald Trump criticized his ability to get people out to vote.
Clinton served as a member of the electoral college for the state of New York. He voted for the Democratic ticket consisting of his wife Hillary and her running-mate Tim Kaine.
![The Funeral of President George H](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/The_Funeral_of_President_George_H.W._Bush_%2831265099837%29.jpg)
On September 7, 2017, Clinton partnered with former presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama to work with One America Appeal to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast and Texas communities.
In 2020 United States presidential election, 2020, Clinton again served as a member of the United States Electoral College from New York, casting his vote for the successful Democratic ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Post-presidential health concerns
In September 2004, Clinton underwent quadruple bypass surgery.
In March 2005, he again underwent surgery, this time for a partially collapsed lung. On February 11, 2010, he was rushed to Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York-Presbyterian/Columbia Hospital in Manhattan after complaining of chest pains, and he had two coronary stents implanted in his heart.
After this procedure, Clinton adopted a plant-based whole foods (vegan) diet, which had been recommended by doctors Dean Ornish and Caldwell Esselstyn.
However, he has since incorporated fish and lean proteins at the suggestion of Mark Hyman (doctor), Dr. Mark Hyman, a proponent of the Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific ethos of functional medicine. As a result, he is no longer a strict vegan.
In October 2021, Clinton was treated for sepsis at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center.
In December 2022, Clinton tested positive for COVID-19.
Wealth
The Clintons incurred several million dollars in legal bills during his presidency, which were paid off four years after he left office. Bill and Hillary Clinton have each earned millions of dollars from book publishing.
In 2016, ''Forbes'' reported Bill and Hillary Clinton made about $240million in the 15years from January 2001, to December 2015, (mostly from paid speeches, business consulting and book-writing). Also in 2016, CNN reported the Clintons combined to receive more than $153million in paid speeches from 2001 until spring 2015.
In May 2015, ''The Hill (newspaper), The Hill'' reported that Bill and Hillary Clinton have made more than $25million in speaking fees since the start of 2014, and that Hillary Clinton also made $5million or more from her book, ''Hard Choices'', during the same time period. In July 2014, ''The Wall Street Journal'' reported that at the end of 2012, the Clintons were worth between $5million and $25.5million, and that in 2012 (the last year they were required to disclose the information) the Clintons made between $16 and $17million, mostly from speaking fees earned by the former president. Clinton earned more than $104million from paid speeches between 2001 and 2012.
In June 2014, ABC News and ''The Washington Post'' reported that Bill Clinton has made more than $100million giving paid speeches since leaving public office, and in 2008, ''The New York Times'' reported that the Clintons' income tax returns show they made $109million in the eight years from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2007, including almost $92million from his speaking and book-writing.
His books include two novels.
Bill Clinton has given dozens of paid speeches each year since leaving office in 2001, mostly to corporations and philanthropic groups in North America and Europe; he often earned $100,000 to $300,000 per speech.
Russian investment bank with ties to the Kremlin paid Clinton $500,000 for a speech in Moscow. Hillary Clinton said she and Bill came out of the White House financially "broke" and in debt, especially due to large legal fees incurred during their years in the White House. "We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea's education." She added, "Bill has worked really hard ... we had to pay off all our debts ... he had to make double the money because of, obviously, taxes; and then pay off the debts, and get us houses, and take care of family members."
Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
In the early 2000s, Clinton took flights on Jeffrey Epstein's private jet in connection with Clinton Foundation work.
In 2002, a spokesperson for Clinton praised Epstein as "a committed philanthropist" with "insights and generosity". While Clinton was president Epstein visited the white house at least 17 times. Years later, Epstein was convicted on sex trafficking charges. Clinton's office released a statement in 2019 saying, "President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York. In 2002 and 2003, President Clinton took four trips on Jeffrey Epstein's airplane: one to Europe, one to Asia, and two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation. Staff, supporters of the Foundation, and his Secret Service detail traveled on every leg of every trip. [...] He's not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade."
However, later reports showed that Clinton had flown on Epstein's plane 26 times. In another statement Clinton said “one meeting with Epstein in his Harlem office in 2002, and around the same time made one brief visit to Epstein’s New York apartment with a staff member and his security detail.” In July 2019 it was reported that that Clinton attended a dinner with Epstein in 1995, a meeting with Epstein that Clinton had not previously disclosed.
Personal life
At the age of 10, he was baptized at Park Place Baptist Church in
Hot Springs, Arkansas
Hot Springs is a resort city in the state of Arkansas and the county seat of Garland County. The city is located in the Ouachita Mountains among the U.S. Interior Highlands, and is set among several natural hot springs for which the city is n ...
and remained a member of a Baptist church. In 2007, he worked with Jimmy Carter in the establishment of the New Baptist Covenant organization.
On October 11, 1975, in Fayetteville, Arkansas, he married Hillary Clinton, Hillary Rodham, whom he met while studying at
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
. They had Chelsea Clinton, their only child, on February 27, 1980. He is the maternal grandfather to Chelsea's three children.
Honors and recognition
Various colleges and universities have awarded Clinton honorary degrees, including Legum Doctor, Doctorate of Law degrees and Doctor of Humane Letters degrees. He received an honorary degree from Georgetown University, his alma mater, and was the commencement speaker in 1980. He is an honorary fellow of University College, Oxford, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar, although he did not complete his studies there. Schools have been named for Clinton, and statues have been built to pay him homage.
U.S. states where he has been honored include Missouri,
Arkansas, Kentucky,
and New York. He was presented with the Medal for Distinguished Public Service by United States Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Defense William Cohen in 2001. The Clinton Presidential Center was opened in Little Rock, Arkansas, in his honor on December 5, 2001.
He has been honored in various other ways, in countries that include the Czech Republic, Papua New Guinea, Germany, and Kosovo.
The Republic of Kosovo, in gratitude for his help during the Kosovo War, renamed a major street in the capital city of Pristina as Bill Clinton Boulevard and added a monumental Clinton statue.
Clinton was selected as ''Time (magazine), Time'' "Time Person of the Year, Man of the Year" in 1992, and again in 1998, along with Ken Starr. From a poll conducted of the American people in December 1999, Clinton was among eighteen included in Gallup's List of Widely Admired People of the 20th century. In 2001, Clinton received the NAACP's NAACP Image Award – President's Award, President's Award. He has also been honored with a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children, a J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding, a TED (conference), TED Prize (named for the confluence of technology, entertainment and design), and was named as an Honorary GLAAD Media Award recipient for his work as an advocate for the LGBT community.
In 2011, President Michel Martelly of Haiti awarded Clinton with the National Order of Honour and Merit to the rank of Grand Cross "for his various initiatives in Haiti and especially his high contribution to the reconstruction of the country after the earthquake of January 12, 2010". Clinton declared at the ceremony that "in the United States of America, I really don't believe former American presidents need awards anymore, but I am very honored by this one, I love Haiti, and I believe in its promise".
U.S. president Barack Obama awarded Clinton the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 20, 2013.
File:William S. Cohen presents President Clinton the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service.jpg, United States Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Cohen presents President Clinton the DoD Medal for Distinguished Public Service.
File:Bill Clinton Statue in Ballybunion.JPG, Bill Clinton statue in Ballybunion, erected to commemorate his 1998 golfing visit
File:Bill Clinton statue.jpg, Bill Clinton statue in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo
File:Bill clinton medal of freedom.jpg, Former President Bill Clinton is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by then president Barack Obama.
Electoral history
Authored books
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Recordings
Bill Clinton is one of the narrators on ''Wolf Tracks and Peter and the Wolf'', a 2003 recording of Sergei Prokofiev's ''Peter and the Wolf'' performed by the Russian National Orchestra, on Pentatone (record label), Pentatone, together with Mikhail Gorbachev and Sophia Loren. This garnered Clinton the 46th Annual Grammy Awards, 2003 Grammy Award for Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children, Best Spoken Word Album for Children.
The audiobook edition of his autobiography, My Life (Clinton autobiography), ''My Life'', read by Clinton himself, won the 47th Annual Grammy Awards, 2005 Grammy Award for Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album, Best Spoken Word Album
[ as well as the Audie Award as the Audiobook of the Year.]
Clinton has two more Grammy nominations for his audiobooks: ''Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World'' in 50th Annual Grammy Awards, 2007 and ''Back to Work (book), Back to Work'' in 55th Annual Grammy Awards, 2012.[
]
See also
* 1996 United States campaign finance controversy
* Clinton family
* Clinton School of Public Service
* Efforts to impeach Bill Clinton
* Gun control policy of the Clinton Administration
* List of presidents of the United States
References
Citations
Further reading
Primary sources
* Clinton, Bill. (with Al Gore).
Science in the National Interest
'' Washington, D.C.: The White House, August 1994.
* --- (with Al Gore).
'' Washington, D.C.: The White House, October 1993.
* Taylor Branch ''The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President.'' (2009) Simon & Schuster.
* ''Official Congressional Record Impeachment Set: ... Containing the Procedures for Implementing the Articles of Impeachment and the Proceedings of the Impeachment Trial of President William Jefferson Clinton.'' Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O., 1999.
* ''Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, William J. Clinton.'' Washington, D.C.: Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration: For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O., 1994–2002.
* S. Daniel Abraham ''Peace Is Possible'', foreword by Bill Clinton
Popular books
* Peter Baker ''The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton'' (2000)
* James Bovard ''Feeling Your Pain: The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years'' (2000)
* Joe Conason and Gene Lyons ''The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton'' (2003)
* Elizabeth Drew ''On the Edge: The Clinton Presidency'' (1994)
* David Gergen ''Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership.'' (2000)
* Nigel Hamilton (author), Nigel Hamilton ''Bill Clinton: An American Journey'' (2003)
* Christopher Hitchens ''No One Left to Lie to: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton'' (1999)
* Michael Isikoff ''Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter's Story'' (1999)
* Mark Katz (speechwriter), Mark Katz ''Clinton and Me: A Real-Life Political Comedy'' (2004)
* David Maraniss
David Maraniss ( ; born 1949) is an American journalist and author, currently serving as an associate editor for ''The Washington Post''.
Career
''The Washington Post'' assigned Maraniss the job of biographer for their coverage of 2008 president ...
''The Clinton Enigma: A Four and a Half Minute Speech Reveals This President's Entire Life'' (1998)
* Dick Morris with Eileen McGann ''Because He Could'' (2004)
* Richard Posner, Richard A. Posner ''An Affair of State: The Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton'' (1999)
* Mark J. Rozell ''The Clinton Scandal and the Future of American Government'' (2000)
* Timperlake, Edward, and William C. Triplett II ''Year of the Rat: How Bill Clinton Compromised U.S. Security for Chinese Cash''. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1998.
* Michael Waldman ''POTUS Speaks: Finding the Words That Defined the Clinton Presidency'' (2000)
* Ivory Tower Publishing Company. Achievements of the Clinton Administration: the Complete Legislative and Executive. (1995)
Scholarly studies
* Campbell, Colin, and Bert A. Rockman, eds. ''The Clinton Legacy'' (Chatham House Pub, 2000)
* Cohen; Jeffrey E. "The Polls: Change and Stability in Public Assessments of Personal Traits, Bill Clinton, 1993–99" ''Presidential Studies Quarterly'', Vol. 31, 2001
* Cronin, Thomas E. and Michael A. Genovese; "President Clinton and Character Questions" ''Presidential Studies Quarterly'' Vol. 28, 1998
* Davis; John. "The Evolution of American Grand Strategy and the War on Terrorism: Clinton and Bush Perspectives" ''White House Studies'', Vol. 3, 2003
* Dumbrell, John. "Was there a Clinton doctrine? President Clinton's foreign policy reconsidered". ''Diplomacy and Statecraft'' 13.2 (2002): 43–56.
* Edwards; George C. "Bill Clinton and His Crisis of Governance" ''Presidential Studies Quarterly'', Vol. 28, 1998
* Fisher; Patrick. "Clinton's Greatest Legislative Achievement? the Success of the 1993 Budget Reconciliation Bill" ''White House Studies'', Vol. 1, 2001
* Glad; Betty. "Evaluating Presidential Character" ''Presidential Studies Quarterly'', Vol. 28, 1998
* Halberstam, David. ''War in a time of peace: Bush, Clinton, and the generals'' (Simon and Schuster, 2001)
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* Jewett, Aubrey W. and Marc D. Turetzky; "Stability and Change in President Clinton's Foreign Policy Beliefs, 1993–96" ''Presidential Studies Quarterly'', Vol. 28, 1998
*
* Laham, Nicholas, ''A Lost Cause: Bill Clinton's Campaign for National Health Insurance'' (1996)
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online
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External links
Official
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