Saturday marks 18 years to the day since the House of Representatives authorized an impeachment inquiry into then-President Bill Clinton following a report from independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who laid out a case for impeaching Clinton in relation to a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Clinton by Paula Jones.
The Starr Report focused on Clinton’s relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Clinton denied under oath that he and Lewinsky ever had any sexual relations and claimed he couldn’t recall any instances in which the two were alone.
Lewinsky also denied the affair, reportedly under pressure from Clinton to keep quiet.
Starr recommended impeaching Clinton on 11 grounds including perjury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and abuse of power.
The report revealed the explosive nature of Clinton’s relationship with Lewinsky. Below are just three of the many from the Starr Report. (Editor’s note: the following contains sexually explicit language and depications)
Clinton spoke on the phone with members of Congress while receiving oral sex.
Lewinsky testified that her first sexual encounter from Clinton took place on November 15, 1995 when he met her in an office of one of his senior advisers before taking her into his private study. (The adviser, George Stephanopoulos, is now an anchor with ABC News.)
Once the two were alone in the office, Lewinsky testified, “she and the President kissed. She unbuttoned her jacket; either she unhooked her bra or he lifted her bra up; and he touched her breasts with his hands and mouth.” Clinton didn’t stop even for a member of Congress.
“I believe he took a phone call . . . and so we moved from the hallway into the back office,” Lewinsky testified. “[H]e put his hand down my pants and stimulated me manually in the genital area.”
Starr notes, “While the President continued talking on the phone (Ms. Lewinsky understood that the caller was a Member of Congress or a Senator), she performed oral sex on him.” Lewinsky’s account was corroborated by White House phone records, Starr said.
Two days later, Clinton would again receive oral sex from Lewinsky. Once again, the president spoke on the phone with a member of Congress while receiving oral sex from a White House intern.
“They kissed, and the President touched Ms. Lewinsky’s bare breasts with his hands and mouth,” Starr recounts. “At some point, Ms. Currie approached the door leading to the hallway, which was ajar, and said that the President had a telephone call. Ms. Lewinsky recalled that the caller was a Member of Congress with a nickname.”
“While the President was on the telephone, according to Ms. Lewinsky, ‘he unzipped his pants and exposed himself,’ and she performed oral sex.”
A similar incident took place when Clinton received a phone call from an adviser, Dick Morris.
After President Clinton took the phone call, he “indicated that Ms. Lewinsky should perform oral sex while he talked on the phone, and she obliged. The telephone conversation was about politics, and Ms. Lewinsky thought the caller might be Dick Morris,” Starr wrote. “White House records confirm that the President had one telephone call during Ms. Lewinsky’s visit: from ‘Mr. Richard Morris,’ to whom he talked from 5:11 to 5:20 p.m.”
The infamous cigar incident: “It tastes good.”
In a now-infamous March 31, 1996 romp, the President Clinton took a cigar out of his mouth and sexually penetrated his intern with it before returning the cigar to his mouth.
“According to Ms. Lewinsky, the President telephoned her at her desk and suggested that she come to the Oval Office on the pretext of delivering papers to him. She went to the Oval Office and was admitted by a plainclothes Secret Service agent. In her folder was a gift for the President, a Hugo Boss necktie,” said the Starr report.
“In the hallway by the study, the President and Ms. Lewinsky kissed. On this occasion, according to Ms. Lewinsky, ‘he focused on me pretty exclusively,’ kissing her bare breasts and fondling her genitals. At one point, the President inserted a cigar into Ms. Lewinsky’s vagina, then put the cigar in his mouth and said: ‘It tastes good.’ After they were finished, Ms. Lewinsky left the Oval Office and walked through the Rose Garden.”
Lots of phone sex
Lewinsky testified that she and Clinton had phone sex at least seven times in 1996, after Lewinsky had started working at the Pentagon.
“According to Ms. Lewinsky, the President telephoned her at about 6:30 a.m. on July 19, the day he was leaving for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, and they had phone sex, after which the President exclaimed, ‘[G]ood morning!’ and then said: ‘What a way to start a day,'” the Starr report said. “In Ms. Lewinsky’s recollection, she and the President also had phone sex on May 21, July 5 or 6, Oct. 22, and Dec. 2, 1996.”
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