'Is this Watergate or Peyton Place?': Clinton impeachment question shadows Congress in Trump era
At the outset of the 1998 impeachment hearings, Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) asked a memorable question that could resonate for some lawmakers today: “Is this Watergate or Peyton Place?”
“Peyton Place” was a steamy soap opera from the 1960s, based on a 1950s novel of the same name. The final judgment, based on the outcome of that impeachment process, was that President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky was much more a soap opera than something close to the Watergate scandal that drove Richard M. Nixon from the Oval Office.
Graham, a House member who later won a Senate seat in 2002, reflected on what happened during the Clinton case for lessons on how to handle today’s investigations that have ensnared President Trump.
He is one of 31 senators who had a sense of deja vu last week as prosecutors secured a guilty plea from Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who implicated the president in a scheme to buy the silence of women who allegedly had affairs with Trump.
Of those current senators, 17 were in the Senate at the time of the Clinton impeachment and voted as jurors in the 1999 trial; 14 served in the House and voted on the articles of impeachment in December 1998 before eventually winning seats in the Senate. Two senators, Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), now the minority leader, and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), participated in both processes, having won Senate races in November 1998.
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