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watergate and bill clinton
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The “Whitewater” scandal was a real estate scheme by the White Water Development Corp. Both President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton were involved in the scandal to make a land deal. Many people were involved in the scheme, which was held in the 1980s in Arkansas. Bill Clinton and his wife maintained their funds by the support of the Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, which represented the Clintons in the overthrow of their Whitewater shares. The Clintons were being investigated when there were improper campaign contributions, political and financial favors, and tax benefits.
The Clintons denied any wrongdoing and that they never had lost money on the Whitewater scheme. In 1994, Counsel Kenneth Starr investigated the wrongdoings by Clinton and his wife. The Clintons were also charged of perjury, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power, but Starr wasn’t able to prove it. In the Whitewater affair the Clintons were investigated on videotapes of their testimonies. In a 1996 trial, the Mc Douglas and Jim Tucker (Clintons successors as governor of Arkansas) were found guilty of fraud. Also David Hale pled guilty to fraud and was a witness of the McDougal, which he received a jail sentence. The Clintons were not found guilty, but Hillary Clinton was charge of damaging information and accused President Clinton administration of lying under oath.
Starr’s job was to expand the investigations of President Clinton and his administration because he wasn’t able to prove them guilty. Starr became successful in January 1998, when he suspected President Clinton role in a sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky. The Lewinsky scandal was when President Clinton denied any sexual involvement with Lewinsky. When the Lewinsky scandal was brought to the public, Paula Corbin Jones claimed that President Clinton had sexually hostile her in 1991. At that time President Clinton was governor of Arkansas and he had a lawsuit of sexual harassment. After the case many women accused President Clinton of having relations with him.
Lewinsky was an unpaid intern and later became a paid staffer at the White House. In the beginning of the case, Monica Lewinsky did deny having sexual relations with the President. Starr then found tape recordings of telephone conversations of Lewinsky describing her relationship with the president. Clinton tried to cover up the affair by having his advisor Vernon Jordan to have Lewinsky lie or having a job outside Washington.
None of this would have been much of a problem had Monica Lewinsky had not told Tripp that Bill Clinton and Vernon Jordan instructed her to lie about the affair with Clinton. Supposedly Linda Tripp has Monica alleging this on tape. These tapes if finally released to the public should prove to be quite titillating, Monica Lewinsky claims that Clinton was very fond of oral sex and that she it to him on a number of occasions. It has been alleged by various news organizations that a secret service agent actually caught Lewinsky and Clinton in the act. It has also been alleged that Monica Lewinsky has a blue semen stained dress which, if true, would be direct DNA evidence of the affair. But it still would not prove obstruction of justice. If that was ever proven it could be an impeachable offence, a sexual scandal probably would not lead to the impeachment of Bill Clinton. If not then it will simply be a source of Bill Clinton jokes.
Historians on the opposing side believe that Nixon had a choice, but he choose the wrong one. He wanted to cover up the Watergate Scandal, and that was the turning point of his presidency. Maurice H. Stans explains, “Nixon was not a party to the Watergate break-in. That has been established, especially by the White House tapes beginning in June 1972, which showed his initial consternation at learning about it.” (Nixon 178) He could have turned the guilty party to the police, but he thought that it would end up hurting him.
First, what were Whitewater and Watergate? Whitewater started as a land development of riverfront property in Arkansas in the 1980s. The Clintons received a large share of the development without putting up any money. The development went bad, so additional capital was needed. There is evidence and testimony suggesting that this cash was obtained illegally from the federal government and never paid back. As for Watergate - though it was revealed by the Senate Watergate committee as an unprecedented abuse of presidential power that was extremely dangerous to the country, it is remembered 25 years later as a strange and unsuccessful burglary in the Watergate office building by people linked to the reelection committee of Nixon. But Watergate was so much more than a political burglary. The Senate hearings showed Watergate was composed of constant criminality by the Nixon White House, and was driven by an extreme commitment to maintain control of power by any means, including criminal conduct. It included the break-in of a psychiatrist's office for the purpose of smearing Daniel Elsberg - the leaker of the Pentagon Papers; the misuse of the IRS and other federal agencies to punish those on the president's "enemies list"; the illegal wiretapping of journalists and members of Nixon's own administration; and the purposeful editing of government documents to enhance a political agenda.2
The first major set back of President Bill Clinton arose from a series of events following the filing of a lawsuit on May 6, 1994, by Paula Jones in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas(Starr). Ms. Jones alleged violations of her federal civil rights in 1991 by President Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas and she was an Arkansas state employee. According to the her allegations, Governor Clinton invited Ms. Jones to his hotel room where he made a sexual advance that she rejected.
Woodward find out that one of the men recently left the Central Intelligence Agency and the other four have ties with the CIA. Woodward linked the men to E. Howard Hunt, who is a former employee of the CIA. The conspiracy widens when he linked the man who works as President Richard Nixon’s Special Counsel Charles Colson. Each of the men had money found on them; this money was in $100 dollar bills. The reporters found that the money came from a fund that came from diverted campaign contributions to Nixon’s Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP). “The Committee for the Re-election of the President was the White House, wholly its creation, staffed by the White House, reporting only to the White House” (85). The fact that the money was linked to the CRP showed that this wasn’t just an ordinary break in. This was the start of a conspiracy that would soon expand to the White House. As the reporters interview staff of the CRP, they found that a large amount of money was used for the Watergate’s tapping. This money was distributed by the highest level staff in the CRP. At the same time, a investigation was being held by the federal court. The final charges did not go as expected by the reporters. The biggest piece of evidence wasn’t even mentioned. Now it would seem that someone is trying to hide some
Richard Nixon's first term as president will always be connected with the Watergate scandal, the biggest political scandal in United States history. Various illegal activities were conducted including burglary, wire tapping, violations of campaign financing laws, sabotage, and attempted use of government agencies to harm political opponents to help Richard Nixon win reelection in the 1972 presidential elections. There were about 40 people charged with crimes related to the scandal. Most of them were convicted by juries or pleaded guilty. Watergate involved more high-level government officials than any previous scandal. It has been etched in the minds of millions and is still being recalled today when faced with the present day scandal of President Clinton. In All The President's Men, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, former Washington Post reporters, recount, illustrate, and analyze the Watergate scandal time and their work in reporting and revealing these events for the newspaper.
Before Clinton was elected President he had an encounter with Paula Jones in a hotel room. After Clinton took office Paula Jones then sued Clinton for sexual harassment. A short time later Monica Lewinsky began her intern at the White House. Clinton and Lewinsky began a sexual relationship. Judge Kenneth Starr was the investigator of Whitewater. President Clinton denied any sexual relations with Lewinsky. On October 8, 1998, the House would vote to have an impeachment and won. Clinton was charged with perjury and obstruction to justice. Bill Clinton would end up not getting kicked out of office by senate.
As Bill Clinton name was being mention “Clinton goes on national TV to admit he had an inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky” (CNN). This quote showed that Clinton realizes that he had to say the truth of what happened between them since he would always be denying that they had no relationship. This was the first step that Clinton had to do, to be sincere of what happened between them and later apologize for his bad conduct he had with Lewinsky, since he was having a relationship with Hillary Clinton. He mentions that “It is important to me that everybody who was been hurt know the sorrow I feel is genuine… Monica Lewinsky” (The History Place). This quote shows that he is feeling bad for what he had done to Monica and ask her if he could be forgiven due to the bad actions he had done to her that cause pain to her in the heart and that he was unfaithful to his wife Hillary Clinton that cause her pain as well as he did it to
The mistrust most Americans feel toward the government officials and political parities of today can be traced back to the Watergate scandal of 1972, which led to the resignation of an American president. The crimes of the Watergate scandal included political burglary, bribery, extortion, wiretapping (phone tapping), conspiracy, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, tax fraud, illegal use of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), illegal campaign contributions, and use of taxpayers' money for private purposes.
The Watergate scandal had everything. Nixon disgraced the presidency by lying to the country and abusing his power and his committees were involved in illegal acts and a big cover up, all leading to little side roads of corruption and lies. Watergate is by far one of the worst presidential scandals in the history of the United States. In the story of Watergate, five burglars were found breaking into democratic offices at the Watergate complex in Washington DC. The break-in was passed off as just another burglary, but when the burglars were found to have connections with the CIA, questions were starting to be asked. Then when the phone number of Howard Hunt was found in one of the burglar’s phone books, it made people think, why would one of the burglars have the phone number of one of the presidents men? When Watergate was uncovered, it revealed that the president was a liar and a cheat. The president lied to our country, lied about his involvement, concealed self incriminating evidence, abused his power, and planed to have the CIA stop the FBI investigations. During the times of the unraveling of Watergate, questions were asked about connections with the White House and the president, but when the president was asked about it at a press conference he assured Americans that The White House has no involvement whatever in this particular incident.
wrong people, including Chinese arms dealers, spies, pimps, and gangsters, among others. Clinton also compromised U.S. safety on more than one occasion. He is a cold, racist, corrupt man who has proven many times over that he does not care about the people, only in using them and obtaining money. In the following pages, one will see facts proving all of this.
Despite the national attention the Watergate scandal had gained President Nixon, he won the second term presidency. The major problem for Nixon would come later. The investigations of the Watergate scandal lead to the discovery of other criminal acts by officials including Nixon. During the investigation many things begin to surface. It was discovered that documents had been destroyed that may have made a link between Nixon and the Watergate scandal. These documents may have shown that he had some acknowledgement in what had happened. There was evidence that people involved in the Nixon campaign had been wire tapping phones illegally for a long time according to “dummies.com”. The greatest issue would come to light during the 1973 Watergate hearings. During testimonies it came to light that every conversation was recorded in the Oval office according to “study.com”. It was demanded that these tapes be reviewed to learn how much involvement President Nixon had in the Watergate burglary. The President felt that he had the right to withhold these tapes through what he referred to as executive privilege. This means that if it is the best interest of the public the president has the right to keep information from the
On August 17, 1998, exactly one year after making the statement above, President Bill Clinton prepared to deliver a speech concerning a scandal that had gripped the nation for months. It is needless to say that this was an important moment during the Clinton administration. After accusations of sexual harassment, Clinton addressed the nation and admitted to having a relationship with Monica Lewinsky. In this critical speech Clinton set out to admit to wrong-doings, provide a few reasons for his action, and ultimately persuade the audience into moving on and forgetting the scandal. This essay will break down his speech into sections and examine the most and least effective strategies that Clinton employed and how well he executed those strategies. This is an interesting speech given under rare circumstances. Not since Watergate had an American president been under such harsh moral criticism from the public. By looking critically at this speech we are able to gain valuable insight into Clinton's motives.
Lately, the top story in the news day after day, months after months have been about William Jefferson Clinton, also known as Bill. Who could blame them, there is nothing better than a story out of the ordinary, especially one with presidential status. For the past months he has been the most talked about figure, being the essential topic for news, talk shows, late night comedy and even going as far as the big screen. Talk about 'Primary Colors' and 'Wag the Dog.' What has gotten to me the most however, were the constant flow of Republicans, along with a few Democrats, who just want to say how shocked and embarrassed they are along with the people of the United States.The president had not just become the most talked about figure, but also one history had ever seen, so far that is, breaking the record and becoming a topic of conversation and debate 'twenty-four seven.' The people, who I think were most affected by this crisis and feel very sad for, are the Republicans, since they had lost severe amount of sleep over the president's bedroom crisis. They had to perform their republican duties by shocking our brains with the president's affair with Monica Lewinsky. We had to ignore the rest of the world news and its issues while they plough through the valley of lies, abuse of power and something they called high crimes and misdemeanors.
Before stepping into the critical analysis of the speech, it is important to understand the historical setting from which the speech arose. The context can be briefly summarized as the following. In 1995 Clinton had a sexual relationship with one of his White House interns by the name of Monica Lewinsky. On January 17, 1998, a sexual misconduct lawsuit against him was filed. Clinton then quickly delivered a forceful public statement that he did not have a sexual relationship with the woman. However, unknown to President Clinton, Linda Tripp, one of Lewinsky’s associates, had recorded several conversations of Lewinsky describing her affair with the President. In the seven months afterwards, Kenneth W. Starr, the StarWhitewater independent counsel, had began collecting evidence of the affair and carrying out investigation about Clinton’s obstruction of justice. Evidence of Clinton lying under oath would be grounds for impeachment. On August 17, 1998, Clinton decided to a...