Inside Impeachment—Diary of a Congressman: Lessons Learned

By Honorable Clifford B. Stearns

This diary provides an inside look at what many members of Congress privately think about impeachment from both a Republican and Democrat perspective and the huge burden of proof required to impeach a sitting President. A key point, yet so often ignored by both authors and commentators, is the extraordinary burden of proof for “high crimes and misdemeanors” that must be met to make a presidential impeachment even remotely possible.

While the previous media commentors and book authors convey a cursory understanding of impeachment, they only scratch the surface of a much deeper issue, and that often leaves listeners with more questions than answers. This book will fill that void. Also, this account will be of immense use to current U.S. senators and representatives, and of great interest to historians and enthusiasts of political process. More than anything, however, this diary it will be appealing to a broad popular audience. While readers may not agree with some of the political stance on issues, the record of conversations and events will be valuable to all, regardless of partisan ideology.

Perhaps the most important points from this book will be the lessons learned from the impeachment process. Every American should read this valuable book to understand how our constitution works.

“Having served in Congress during the Impeachment of President Clinton, I find the diary of the impeachment process by Rep. Stearns fascinating and clearly an insider’s view from both sides of the political aisle.
—Congressman Tim Petri

“From a historical standpoint, this new book by Mr. Stearns on the impeachment process is a welcome addition to better understanding how the process in the House of Representatives really works. It also will provide insight if another impeachment is begun.”
—Andy Glass, Contributing Editor, Politico,

“As a Member of Congress who actually took part in the debate on Bill Clinton’s 1998–99 impeachment, Cliff Stearns vividly brings to life what was then only the second impeachment of a president in the history of the US. The entire process, its equivalent to an indictment by a grand jury, and the serious and highly personal exchanges of the House Members are much-needed guidelines to understand why impeachment did come up again and will in the future.”
—John Gizzi, Senior White House Correspondent, Newsmax

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Sep 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9781665742528

Honorable Clifford B. Stearns

Cliff Stearns is an Executive Director based in APCO Worldwide’s Washington, DC, office and serves as a member of APCO’s International Advisory Council. He is a former Member of Congress for Florida’s 3rd District, where he gained extensive experience in telecommunications, technology, cyber-security, and international trade during his twenty-four years of service. He recently was president of the United States Association of Former Members of Congress, whose membership includes more than 500 former Senators and Congressmen. While in Congress, his various pieces of legislation were signed by four presidents, including the “Do Not Call List” to prevent nuisance phone calls, the Millennium Healthcare for Veterans, the placing of defibrillators in public sectors, and the return to the State of Florida 87,000 acres of federal land that established a greenbelt across Florida from Jacksonville to the Gulf Coast. Congressman Stearns was also a business owner of motels and restaurants before being elected to Congress. He is a graduate of the George Washington University with a degree in electrical engineering. He was a Captain in the United States Air Force and served four years as an aerospace project engineer providing satellite reconnaissance of Vietnam. He was awarded the Air Force Commendation Medal for distinguished service and meritorious achievement and later, as a congressman, received the Air Force Association W. Stuart Symington Award, the highest honor presented to a civilian in the field of national security. Mr. Stearns lives in Ocala, Florida, with his wife, Joan. They have three grown sons.

Book preview

Copyright © 2023 Honorable Clifford B. Stearns.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing

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For more information on Stearns’s first book, Life in the Marble Palace (In Praise of Folly),

please visit his author website at cliffordstearns.com.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-4251-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-4253-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-4252-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023907580

Archway Publishing rev. date: 04/25/2024

DEDICATION

For my father, Clifford Robert Stearns, an attorney and Commander in the Navy with a Bronze Star during the Iwo Jima campaign, and for my beloved mother, Emily Newlin Stearns, librarian, poet, and author.

CONTENTS

Summary of Salient Diary Events

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Clinton Impeachment Timeline

Who’s Who in House Impeachment

The Legislator

PART 1: AUGUST 17–SEPTEMBER 28, 1998

Monday, August 17, 1998

Monday, September 7, 1998

Wednesday, September 9, 1998

Friday, September 11, 1998

Saturday, September 12, 1998

Sunday, September 13, 1998

Monday, September 14, 1998

Tuesday, September 15, 1998

Wednesday, September 16, 1998

Thursday, September 17, 1998

Friday, September 18, 1998

Monday, September 21, 1998

Wednesday, September 23, 1998

Thursday, September 24, 1998

Friday, September 25, 1998

Saturday, September 26, 1998

Sunday, September 27, 1998

Monday, September 28, 1998

PART 2: OCTOBER 1–OCTOBER 21, 1998

Thursday, October 1, 1998

Friday, October 2, 1998

Saturday, October 3, 1998

Sunday, October 4, 1998

Wednesday, October 7, 1998

Thursday, October 8, 1998

Friday, October 9, 1998

Wednesday, October 14, 1998

Saturday, October 17, 1998

Sunday, October 18, 1998

Tuesday, October 20, 1998

Wednesday, October 21, 1998

PART 3: NOVEMBER 5–NOVEMBER 22, 1998

Thursday, November 5, 1998

Friday, November 6, 1998

Saturday, November 7, 1998

Friday, November 13, 1998

Saturday, November 14, 1998

Sunday, November 22, 1998

PART 4: NOVEMBER 30–DECEMBER 15, 1998

Monday, November 30, 1998

Tuesday, December 1, 1998

Friday, December 4, 1998

Tuesday, December 8, 1998

Thursday, December 10, 1998

Monday, December 14, 1998

Tuesday, December 15, 1998

PART 5: DECEMBER 16–DECEMBER 24, 1998

Wednesday, December 16, 1998

Thursday, December 17, 1998

Friday, December 18, 1998

Saturday, December 19, 1998 AM

Saturday, December 19, 1998 PM

Sunday, December 20, 1998

Thursday, December 24, 1998

Epilogue

Afterword

March 2023

Lessons Learned, Pt. 1

Impeachment Comparisons: Three Presidents and Four Acquittals

The Andrew Johnson Impeachment

The William Jefferson Clinton Impeachment

The Donald J. Trump First Impeachment

Presidential Behavioral Impact

Bankruptcies

Personal Life

Financial Dealings While in Office

Social Media

Cabinet Changeovers

Lessons Learned, Pt. 2

Effects of Impeachment

What Have We Learned?

Lingering Problems for Future Impeachments

The Chasm in American Politics and Social Media

The Instrument of Impeachment

Appendix A: Impeachment Managers

Names of Impeachment Managers

Appendix B: Impeachment Managers, Life after the Clinton Impeachment

Appendix C: 400 Historians Denounce Impeachment

Appendix D: Articles of Impeachment

Appendix E: House Impeachment Activity

Appendix F: Impeachment Resolution

Appendix G: Opening Speech by Rep. Richard Gephardt

Appendix H: Opening Speech by Rep. Henry Hyde

Appendix I: Debate Speech by Rep. Clifford Stearns

Appendix J: Debate Speech by Rep. Clifford Stearns

Appendix K: Special Counsel vs. Special Prosecutor: What’s the Difference?

Appendix L: Brett Kavanaugh’s Graphic Questions for Clinton Are Now Public

Appendix M: Speech by Rep. Henry Hyde: There Are Things Worth Losing For

Appendix N: Clinton Accused of 1978 Hotel Rape

Appendix O: Ten Commandments of Damage Control

Appendix P: Future Impact of the Internet on Impeachment

About the Author

Publications

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. House of Representatives, US Capitol, January 23, 1998

Figure 2. Gravesite of Cliff Stearns’s father and great-grandfather at Arlington National Cemetery, Section 30, Grave 2208

Figure 3. Trying to oust Congressman Cliff Stearns

Figure 4. Clinton Impeachment Managers

Clifford B. Stearns

SUMMARY OF SALIENT DIARY EVENTS

This Diary goes from August 17, 1998, to December 24, 1998, and follows the Clinton Impeachment Timeline as follows:

Part 1 of the Diary, pages 25–72, covers the period from August 17–September 28, 1998:

President Clinton testifies in the grand jury, acknowledging inappropriate intimate contact with Lewinsky.

Independent counsel Kenneth Starr releases his report to Congress. It has eleven possible grounds for impeachment. The House votes to make the 445-page report public.

Part 2 of the Diary, pages 74–117, covers the period October 1–24, 1998.

The House Judiciary Committee votes to launch a congressional impeachment inquiry against President Clinton.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde announces that the impeachment inquiry will concentrate its focus on two core charges: that President Clinton lied under oath and that he attempted to obstruct justice.

Part 3 of the Diary, pages 120–127, covers November 5–22, 1998.

Paula Jones drops her sexual harassment appeal against President Clinton in return for $850,000.

Prosecutor Kenneth Starr offers his testimony to the House of Representatives judiciary committee.

Part 4 of the Diary, pages 130–142, covers the period November 30–December 15, 1998.

The House Judiciary Committee approves three articles of impeachment on a 21–16 party-line vote, passing them to the full House of Representatives.

The committee approves a fourth article of impeachment on a party-line vote, accusing President Clinton of abusing power in a direct parallel to Watergate-era language.

Part 5 of the Diary, pages 143–152, covers the period December 16–24,1998.

President Clinton is impeached as the Republican-controlled House approves two of the four proposed articles of impeachment by narrow partisan majorities: 228–206 and 221–212.

President Clinton is sent for trial in the Senate.

FOREWORD

Congressman Cliff Stearns was fated to play a key role in the 1999 Senate Impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton—and he takes the reader of this revealing book directly into the searing realities of that major historical event.

Formal impeachment trials as we witnessed then with President Bill Clinton—and twice since with President Donald Trump—can become boiling cauldrons of public and institutional controversy.

Partisanship and ideology can also affect attitudes and votes.

————

Congressman Stearns’s keen insights provide important illumination of this fraught impeachment process.

In 1999—after many days of hearing the House evidence in a formal Senate trial—and the weight of arguments back and forth—would the Senate by a two-thirds vote decide to convict President Clinton—and remove him from office?

Many outside observers supported the impeachment of President Clinton—for his false testimony, under oath, in the earlier Paula Jones trial—believing that Clinton—a lawyer himself—had knowingly committed perjury at that trial. Other troubling personal conduct was also explored.

Each Senator had to decide whether the factual case evidence presented reached the ultimate highest legal constitutional standard required: namely a finding of high crimes and misdemeanors—and then a two-thirds majority vote for the president’s actual conviction—and removal from office.

When the House impeachment case was formally and fully presented—the full Senate—having served as a 100 member ‘jury’—had to then render its verdict.

And when each Senator’s name was called—it required each one to stand at their desks and publicly announce their individual verdict.

Cliff Stearns’s honest and penetrating first person account in this book brings it all to life.

—Former Senator Don Riegle. Don Riegle had a twenty-eight-year record of service in the US House and Senate. He served his first six years as a Republican and last twenty-two years as a Democrat—changing his party affiliation in January of 1973. He served with seven US Presidents, Johnson through Clinton. He retired from the Senate at the end of 1994.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing a book on this subject oftentimes causes one angst. The subject is fraught with politics and it is sometimes difficult to separate your own feelings from the narrative you are trying to convey. I want to acknowledge the advice and assistance from others who provided much guidance during my writing and helped to tell the story.

Early editing of the original diary came from Valerie Valentine, who worked off the dictation from the tapes I used to record my thoughts each day. This was a meticulous and tedious task and she did a terrific job. Once I had the transcript of the book correctly formatted and made legible, she did the initial editing and I appreciate her fine work.

John Fenzel read the first manuscript and suggested that portions of the narrative be expanded to include not only my background and how I came to write the book but also vignettes in Congress that made the book much more interesting. I thank him for his insights.

And lastly, I want to thank Ann Aubrey Hanson for the terrific job of formatting the entire book, providing accurate footnotes, and editing much of the book when I expanded it to include Lessons Learned from the entire impeachment process. I am grateful for Ann creating the detailed index for this book.

I am grateful to all of them for their assistance and appreciate their willingness to go the extra mile to support this important historical document.

Cliff Stearns

Ocala, Florida

The laws of this country are the great barriers that protect the citizens from the winds of evil and tyranny. If we permit one of those laws to fall, who will be able to stand in the winds that follow?

—Sir Thomas More (Robert Bolt,

A Man for All Seasons)

PROLOGUE

December 19, 1998, was a cold winter Saturday in Washington, DC. Outside the US Capitol, crowds had gathered on both sides to argue about President Bill Clinton’s impeachment as the US House of Representatives voted on the four Articles of Impeachment against him.

Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich had named Congressman Ray LaHood (R-IL) from Illinois to preside over the proceedings.

Between speeches on the House Floor, Congressman Collin Peterson (D-MN) approached me in private. I knew Collin well. He was a sort of John Wayne kind of guy who smoked a lot and had a suave down-to-earth personality and a weathered face that women loved. He was a conservative Democrat who owned a small plane and flew around his Minnesota district because it was so vast. He was divorced, had his own band, and played country western songs on his guitar.

We had traveled often together during congressional delegations, or CODELs. When we were in Washington, we were frequently in the House gym together. I liked him very much. As I was making my way to the Republican cloakroom, he approached me with a purpose—clearly with something on his mind.

How are you going to vote?

Are you kidding me? I said, genuinely surprised. I’m going to vote for all four articles. What about you?

Collin leaned into me and said, I don’t think I’ll be voting for any of them.

I shook my head. You gotta be crazy, I said. It’s an established fact that Clinton lied, and this episode is just the tip of the bucket with this guy … I paused and did a doubletake. So, you don’t think he had this affair?

Yes, he answered matter-of-factly. He had the affair.

So, what? You don’t believe he’s lying about it?

Collin nodded. Yes, I think he is lying. He paused for a moment, as if considering his response, and then waved out at the chamber. But let me tell you something … everybody in this place is having an affair.

That day, two Articles of Impeachment passed by close margins in the House of Representatives vote.

Later that day, Speaker of the House-elect Bob Livingston resigned over his own case of adultery, while encouraging President Clinton to do the same.

The legal problems for President William Jefferson Clinton, the nation’s forty-second president, began in 1994, when Paula Jones filed a lawsuit accusing Clinton of sexual harassment back when he was governor of Arkansas. President Clinton actively attempted to delay any trial dealing with that accusation until he had left office, but his legal strategy collapsed in May 1997 when the Supreme Court unanimously ordered the case to proceed.

Very soon thereafter, the pretrial discovery process commenced.

In late 1997, White House employee Linda Tripp began secretly recording conversations with her friend, Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern. During those conversations, Lewinsky divulged to Tripp that she had had a sexual relationship with the president. Tripp proceeded to share this information with Paula Jones’s lawyers, who were trying to show a pattern of sexual misconduct. In December 1997, those lawyers placed Lewinsky on their witness list.

The first public sign of serious trouble for President Clinton was a story that ran on the Drudge Report on January 17, 1998, reporting that Newsweek editors were sitting on a story exposing the affair.¹ Four days later, The Washington Post picked up the story.²

Following a public uproar and demand for answers, the president told the American people, with conviction (and with his wife by his side), that he did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.³

Despite numerous requests, Clinton avoided testifying before a grand jury until August. The investigation that followed led to charges of perjury against Clinton.

Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19, 1998, for allegedly misleading the grand jury about his extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky in the White House, and then persuading others to lie about it, too. The charges against Clinton were perjury and obstruction of justice. Here, I have provided a timeline of the events on the impeachment of Clinton.

The House Republicans were in the majority by 245 to 190. Notwithstanding this majority, twenty-eight Republicans voted against the second perjury charge, sending it to defeat, and eighty-one voted against the abuse of power charge.⁴ The House approves two of the four proposed Articles of Impeachment.

The trial in the Senate began right after the seating of the 106th Congress, in which the Republican Party held fifty-five Senate seats. A two-thirds vote (sixty-seven senators) was required to remove Clinton from office. Fifty senators voted to remove Clinton on the obstruction of justice charge and forty-five voted to remove him on the perjury charge; no member of his own Democratic Party voted guilty on either charge. Like President Andrew Johnson a century earlier, Clinton was acquitted on all charges.⁵

After the Senate acquitted Clinton of both charges on February 12, 1999, he went on to apologize for the affair and completed his second term in office, telling a captivated and polarized American public, Indeed, I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible.⁶

Rather than seeking forgiveness, or admitting his guilt, President Clinton was wholly defiant. Rejecting all calls for his resignation, Clinton thanked the Democratic members of Congress who voted against his impeachment and promised to stay on as president until the last hour.

To put President Clinton’s impeachment into perspective, only two presidents have been impeached in United States history before Donald Trump was impeached twice. Andrew Johnson succeeded to the presidency following President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. As it turns out, neither of the two impeached presidents, Andrew Johnson nor Bill Clinton, were convicted by the Senate. Neither was Donald Trump found guilty in his two impeachment trials.

Andrew Johnson, the seventeenth president of the United States, was accused of violating the Tenure of Office Act, which was an 1867 law that required Senate approval before a president could remove any member of his cabinet who had been confirmed by the Senate.

Johnson had fired his Secretary of War following repeated clashes with the Republican Congress over how to treat the South during the Reconstruction process. Ultimately, Johnson was spared conviction and ousting from office by a single vote.⁷

For many readers today, the impeachment of Bill Clinton is just a vague memory. For me, it was one of several defining moments in my lifetime, and I realize that my perspective is probably unique.

As a United States Congressman representing Florida’s 3rd District, I personally participated in this process, and my memory of those four months remains as vivid today as if they had happened yesterday. To be sure that my recollections would remain accurate, I kept a diary during those four months, from start to finish of the impeachment process. To my knowledge—and great surprise—I am the only Congress member to have maintained such a record.

I wrote down my activities during the day and dictated my thoughts into a recorder at night. Given the historic context and atmosphere of the time, I believed then—as I do today—that my observations might be of some historic interest, while providing background and inside commentary during what can only be described as a momentous time in American history.

My hope is that even in our current political climate, the reader will see what made the impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton possible, and the extraordinary burden of proof for high crimes and misdemeanors that must be met to make a presidential impeachment even remotely possible.

The problem that Democrats were facing in November 2019 was that President Donald J. Trump was under attack during this time, and he was trying to defend himself. Most Americans will not see his aggressive self-defense during this attack as grounds to impeach him. He was acquitted.

The larger, more formidable, issue facing President Trump was his conflict of interest with his network of businesses, his lack of transparency with his taxes, and his family’s intimate involvement with government policy while concurrently running Trump corporate operations.

The personal account that follows illustrates the challenges that abound in a presidential impeachment process, as well as the emotional rollercoaster experienced every day by those involved. This is a diary that I hope can provide an inside look at what members of Congress, from both parties, think about impeachment.

After Democrats gained the majority in the House after the election of President Trump, talk of impeachment became more and more frequent. The cries of Impeach Trump! quickly gave way to slogans that echoed in the halls of Congress, defusing logic while promoting emotion. The net effect is that our collective effectiveness as an institution has been defused over time.

Whether you were a President Trump supporter or a critic, I believe my account can help readers develop an understanding of Article II of the United States Constitution, and how it directly applies to today’s ongoing debate. While some supported the impeachment of President Trump, the inconclusive outcome of the Mueller Report following the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election contributed to Trump’s feeling of success and the public’s acceptance of the outcome. However, the House representatives went ahead with impeachment, notwithstanding the Mueller Report. The Senate acquitted him on the charges from the House of Representatives. Trump was later impeached after he left office, but was again acquitted.

This is a troubling trend for our nation—just as our media outlets have become highly partisan, and the masses have been given a bullhorn with social media venues—it seems that everything, including our Constitution, has become weaponized.

Impeachment, in fact, is not meant to be a weapon of any kind. Those who choose to view it that way will be deeply disappointed, even if they regard it as a weapon of last resort. If anything, impeachment represents a defensive bulwark that serves our Republic and all of its founding democratic ideals. For those on the Republic’s front lines who are sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, regardless of party, impeachment is never a threat or option to be thrown around lightly, or indiscriminately, but the evidence appears that it has been used thusly in four cases.

---

¹ Newsweek Kills Story on House Intern, Drudge Report Archives, January 17, 1998, accessed at www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2002/01/17/20020117_175502_ml.htm

² Susan Schmidt, Peter Baker, and Toni Locy, Special Report: Clinton Accused of Urging Aide to Lie, The Washington Post, January 21, 1998, accessed at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/clinton012198.htm.

³ Bill Clinton, Response to the Lewinsky Allegations, January 26, 1998, YouTube, accessed November 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8AOzQw-2ec.

⁴ Andrew Glass, House Votes to Impeach Clinton, Politico, October 8, 1998, accessed at www.politico.com/story/2017/10/08/house-votes-to-impeach-clinton-oct-8-1998-243550.

⁵ Wikipedia, Impeachment in the United States,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States.

⁶ AllPolitics, Clinton Admits to ‘Wrong’ Relationship with Lewinsky, AllPolitics, August 17, 1998, accessed at www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/

1998/08/17/speech/.

⁷ Tom Murse, Impeached Presidents of the United States, ThoughtCo., September 6, 2018, accessed at www.thoughtco.com/presidents-who-were-impeached-3368130.

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT TIMELINE

January 17, 1998⁸

President Clinton, testifying under oath to lawyers in the Paula Jones harassment case, denies having had an affair with Monica Lewinsky. He reportedly acknowledges having had an affair with Gennifer Flowers, a charge that he had previously denied.

January 19, 1998

Monica Lewinsky’s name and the rumors linking her with President Clinton are published on the Drudge Report internet site. Drudge reveals that Newsweek obtained tapes of the Lewinsky–Tripp conversations but pulled their publication after pressure from counsel Kenneth Starr, who insisted that his investigation would be jeopardized.

January 21, 1998

The Washington Post reports Lewinsky’s allegations. President Clinton denies the charges in vague terms. There is no improper relationship, he tells a TV interviewer.

January 26, 1998

"I want you to listen to me. I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky. I never told a