Monica Lewinsky tends to avoid politics these days, after becoming instantly famous nearly 20 years ago as the White House intern who had an affair with President Bill Clinton.
Unfortunately for Lewinsky, the 2016 presidential race keeps getting stuck in the past.
In the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the Republican hinted at the Clintons’ marital problems and brought up Bill Clinton’s infidelities directly soon after. For now, Trump says he won’t discuss the subject at the debate on Sunday. But he has been known to change his mind.
“Let’s see what happens,” Trump said at a town-hall event Thursday night in New Hampshire, referring to whether he will hold off on the topic. “I think we’re all better off if we can do that because it is about issues, it is about policies.”
Hillary Clinton may not want to relive this period. But Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said any attack by Trump on the topic would backfire, showing Trump to be “combustible and erratic.” Some political analysts said Trump risks showing Clinton in a sympathetic light as the wronged wife — hardly helpful as he struggles to draw support from women.
Yet it’s a fraught subject for both of them. Bill Clinton aides moved aggressively to discredit women who alleged sexual contact with him, while Hillary Clinton stood by her husband publicly in much of that era and cast his accusers as part of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”
Still, Dianne Bystrom, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University, said the Lewinsky episode humanized the Clintons for many Americans. “People felt sorry for her,” she said.
Lewinsky declined to be interviewed for this story. After staying out of the public eye for many years, she recently re-emerged as an anti-bullying advocate. She has talked about the public shaming she experienced in a well-received 2014 Vanity Fair essay and a TED Talk.
“I’ve decided, finally, to stick my head above the parapet so that I can take back my narrative and give a purpose to my past,” Lewinsky wrote in Vanity Fair.
In June of that year, Hillary Clinton told ABC’s “Nightline” that she wishes Lewinsky well, adding: “I hope that she is able to think about her future and construct a life that she finds meaning and satisfaction in.”
The end? No.
Trump in 2016 threatened to bring up Bill Clinton’s infidelities and congratulated himself for refraining in the first of three presidential debates. Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said Thursday he does not plan to talk about Lewinsky or others during Sunday’s showdown.
Bill Clinton has long been dogged by allegations of womanizing, extramarital affairs and abuse. During his 1992 campaign, Betsey Wright, a longtime aide to the Clinton, dubbed the problems “bimbo eruptions,” a demeaning label that appeared aimed at discrediting them.
But the most damaging episode was his relationship with Lewinsky. The two met in 1995 when she was a 22-year-old intern and she later revealed they had a series of sexual encounters over a roughly 18-month period, some in the Oval Office. Clinton initially denied the relationship, but eventually admitted it and said he “misled people, including even my wife.”
The president was impeached over the episode, accused of obstruction and perjury, and acquitted by the Senate.
In her book “Living History,” Hillary Clinton wrote that she believed her husband when he initially denied the relationship. She described the moment in August 1998 when he told her that he had lied. She said she could hardly breathe, and screamed in rage.
“I was dumbfounded, heartbroken and outraged that I’d believed him at all,” she wrote.
Lewinsky is not the only relationship baggage for Clinton. In 1998, he agreed to an $850,000 settlement with Paula Jones, an Arkansas state worker, who had accused Clinton of exposing himself and making indecent propositions when Clinton was the governor. The settlement included no apology or admission of guilt.
Juanita Broaddrick, a nurse, in 1999 claimed she was raped by then-state Attorney General Clinton at a Little Rock hotel in 1978. Clinton’s attorney denied the claim at the time and Clinton was never charged. Kathleen Willey, a White House volunteer, claimed Clinton fondled her when she met privately with him at the White House in 1993 to seek a job. Clinton has denied the allegations by both women.
Hillary Clinton’s involvement in efforts to undermine the credibility of her husband’s accusers remains the subject of speculation; what’s known is that people close to her or Bill Clinton spared little effort on that front.
Writings about the Clinton White House years suggest she was active behind the scenes, helping to drive political and legal strategy to defend her husband during the Lewinsky investigation. Her friend Diane Blair wrote in her diary that Hillary Clinton had called Lewinsky a “narcissistic loony tune.” Former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos, in his 1999 memoir, recalled Hillary Clinton in 1992 saying of one woman who claimed to have been propositioned by her husband, “We have to destroy her story.”
After the first debate, Trump supporter Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor, raised the Lewinsky affair, arguing that Hillary Clinton attacked Lewinsky after the revelations and saying that “if you didn’t know the moment Monica Lewinsky said that Bill Clinton violated her that she was telling the truth, then you’re too stupid to be president.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
What a messed Clinton Family, scandals after scandals.Now Email server and Clinton Foundation, Pay for Play.
Hillary want us to put her back in White House?
I cant believe anyone in there right mind mind would ever consider voting for her. She has made a fortune at all of the taxpayers cost. America’s cost She has done nothing but sell us out for personal gain!! $300M Thats alot of gain. She could care less about the lives that has been lost over her personal gain either. Benghazi? And whats going on now?
If the American voter puts this criminal back into the White House again. Then we know our votes do not count. Just imagine the number of people that attend Trumps’s rallies. Then look at the people that attend Hillary’s never crowed rooms for her rallies. These people dictate the number of votes they get. There is no way Trump would not win if simple math dictates the winner. Hillary is a sick horse that cannot run a race that is 50 yds long. She passes out, she cannot walk up even 3 stairs, she shakes like a freight train, she treats her security like trash they saves her life daily. Her record in Libya, the e-mails, the lies she tells to the family’s of Bengazhi, and her honesty does not exist under in condition. There is pages of her corrupt record while in office that she should be in prison for treason.
Trump shouldn’t focus on Bills affairs but DEFINITELY SHOULD address the way Hillary reacted to them. Hôw instead of being the wronged wife she set her crosshairs on destroying and discrediting and harassing the women who were victims. She says she’s all for women! That’s bullshit, the ONLY woman she’s for is herself! She should burn in hell for all her past AND present crimes, injustices änd evil acts.
“Burn in Hell?” You crackhead fundamentalist Christians are judge-y about everything, like you all are pure as the driven snow. Which I’m certain you a’int. Way too much interest in sex and too little on public policy. What about the knowledge of, if not the outright planning of, the murder of nearly 3000 US civilians on 9/11 on American soil in order to interfere in the Middle East, where the US slaughtered, and continues to slaughter. Constant warfare to enrich the pocketbooks of the elite, and to impoverish the rest of us. Not to mention killing off excess young American men and women from the lower rungs of the economic ladder, so they won’t burden the system.
Mr Trump should avoid answering any questions frfom the moderator.PERIOD< And insted counter with some his agenda ideas for the country in awawy that answers the questions indirectly. And stand firm in his responces.
The Clintons have created so much dirt It is apalling that this witch is even on the ballot!. She claims ignorance. BUt you look at her facial expressions, She shows nothing but contempt for those pursueing the truth.
I only shudder to think what will to this country if she takes the White HOuse.
By the way, She and Bill incorporated them selves back when. A corporation is ONE initiy. that would mean she AND Bill were the PRESIDENTs RUNNING SIDE BY SIDE, So why is it with all of the legal eagles in congress, she has slipped by this law. As I understand it she can't run anyway just on this law alone.!.
Why doesn’t the press and you for that matter comment on the Hundreds of thousands of dollars the Clintons paid to settle the claims of sexually molesting woman. And at least mention his having to give up his license to practice law as part of his settlement of the charges against him, Just few of the lies and dishonesty of this pair of criminals!
While watchin Johnny Carson re-runs, Johnny offered this zinger in his monologe, “Bill Clinton is in trouble again. Hillary found Amillia Earharts other shoe under Bill’s bed” making reference that only one of her supposed shoes has ever been recovered.
She has insulted Trump voters while she herself is the greatest insult of a human being the world has ever seen, she should be in jail instead of running for president, they just arrested another guy for exactly doing what she has done through her illegal, private email server and I just read that she never even finished her security clearance that everybody needs to have in order to work for the Government and/or even being allowed to be around top secret/classified information….She breached everything and anything that has to do with Government and is NOT sitting in jail…How can anybody even have any respect for her, her crony helpers and her husband who is accused of rape..???? Don’t the people who help and support her/them have any honor left in their minds and hearts, were they born and raised that way or so brainwashed into thinking that it is truly a good thing to even being around these dirt bags/filth, the lowest of the lowest crap that has ever walked on this planet…. So, so DISGUSTING….
Not very angel like are you? I think you need to realize all that you typed above is your opinion, probably seen thru quite a haze of anger, from the way you put your words together to be judge and jury. Not your job. My opinion is a whole ‘nother story. Talk about dirt bags? You have got one in your candidate. Only acceptable because he voices all the anger and jealousy you hold in your heart. How a woman could support such a man is beyond me. You do realize that if he met you, your expectations would suffer extreme disappointment, as he dismissed you as someone beneath his notice, except, of course, for your vote. Only because you are a woman. If you can’t do a good job of providing service; be that bringing his coffee, warming his bed, or making other men jealous of the eye candy on his arm, you are worthless to him; therefore: worthless, period. In all of this, I pity his wife: like the others she will age and her value to him will decrease, his restless eye will spot one like his daughter, Ivanka, and goodbye marriage, hello affair with a new —— fill in the blank.
Don’t talk to me about being blind about Hillary until you open your eyes to all that Trump is and represents.
You need to realize that we see you even more so, as you see us: dumb, uneducated and blind. Brainwashed. Fueled by bitterness. Unable to think beyond your negative emotions. And worse of all, bigots; can’t share the country and all its goodness with someone who has darker skin, different hair, a different religion, excluding Islam, is more intelligent, will do/does better in life, has a higher paying job, and so on and so on.
Alas, poor country!
& now media dumps on Trump for doing LESS than Bill has done since Governor days in AR alone
Unfair
Yet wont blame Bill for actions BUT blame Trump.
MR. TRUMP: DO NOT LET THEM FORCE YOU TO QUIT!!! HIL LIAR Y’s TEAM IS SQUIRMING!!! Horrific she says…….does she realize who she is married to????? All the finger-pointers talk that way behind closed doors….who are they kidding? Republican Party is a dead issue for not supporting Trump……..Democratic Party proved themselves as paid off criminals.
TRUMP IS FOR THE PEOPLE…….”WE THE PEOPLE”