A former House Republican leader during the successful impeachment of former President Bill Clinton said that the Democrat would have ended up behind bars if he had been held to the current #MeToo era standards of sexual harassment.
[Click here for complete Kavanaugh coverage]
“By today’s standards, would Juanita Broaddrick be heard? Yes. Would Paula Jones be given more deference than she was? Yes. Would Kathleen Willey be listened to? Yes, absolutely,” said former Rep. Bob Livingston, speaker-elect in 1998.
Livingston, who resigned before moving up to the top job after an old extramarital affair was dragged into public by a $1 million offer from Hustler Magazine, said that Clinton’s womanizing and denials would have doomed his presidency.
“They could have resulted in his conviction on impeachment and his imprisonment using the standards that are being used against [Supreme Court nominee Brett] Kavanaugh,” said Livingston, a lobbyist who has just penned a lively autobiography titled The Windmill Chaser, Triumphs and Less in American Politics.
All three woman had charged Clinton with sexual abuse, but were dismissed and mocked even by women -- a stark contrast to those charging Kavanaugh of assaults he denies. During his initial presidential campaign, in 1992, Clinton also denied Gennifer Flower's claim of a long extramarital affair.
[Opinion: As the Kavanaugh debacle shows, the #MeToo culture is unfair to men]
During the investigation into his and wife Hillary Rodham Clinton’s real estate deal known as Whitewater, the former president’s sexual affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky was revealed.
Clinton initially lied about his involvement, then came clean after his DNA was found on one of her dresses. His perjury was key to his eventual impeachment in 1998. The Senate, however, did not convict him.
He stumbled on a recent book tour when he became angry when pushed to apologize to Lewinsky, whose life was upended when the West Wing affair became public and Clinton’s team assailed her.
Before and during the impeachment process, Clinton’s accusers were attacked by the president’s surrogates. Livingston wrote, “I felt that the Clinton administration had made it clear that there was no price too high for someone else to pay so long as this many could stay in power.”
Livingston also wrote in his new book that the House, and then Speaker Newt Gingrich, erred in focusing on impeachment instead of playing up GOP policy wins leading up to the 1998 midterms. The Republicans lost five seats and Gingrich his job despite retaining the majority.
Livingston, founder of the powerhouse lobby firm Livingston Group, initially was elected to replace Gingrich until the old affair, which he had long before ended and admitted to his family, was revealed. He decided to step down and Dennis Hastert became speaker.
Of note in the book, Gingrich penned the foreward in which he agreed with Livingston’s assessment. He wrote:
“If we had been more patient and allowed the country to focus more on the nature of perjury, the importance of protecting the rule of law, and the seriousness of a felony, the process would have worked better. Our willingness to be aggressive simply played into Clinton’s and [advisor James] Carville’s ability to lie about the issues and to polarize in a way that submerged the president’s illegal behavior into a swamp of partisan vitriol. Livingston’s book is worth reading for this thoughtful analysis.”