February 12, 1999
Web posted at: 7:01 p.m. EST (0001 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, February 12) -- After a year full of investigations, hearings and a 21-day impeachment trial, President Bill Clinton was acquitted Friday by the Senate of charges he committed perjury and obstructed justice. Reacting to the Senate's verdict, Clinton said he was "profoundly sorry" for the burden he had imposed on the Congress.

• Reaction to the acquittal
• The votes
• Move to censure tabled
• Secretary of State receives judgment

"Now that the Senate has fulfilled its constitutional responsibility ... I want to say again to the American people how profoundly sorry I am for what I said and did to trigger these events and the great burden they have imposed on the Congress and the America people," Clinton said in the White House Rose Garden. (Full story)

President Clinton spoke in the Rose Garden after being acquitted by the Senate

After more than three days of secret deliberations, the Senate rejected 55-45 the first article of impeachment charging Clinton lied under oath in his August 17 grand jury testimony. The second article, which alleged the president obstructed justice in his attempt to cover up his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, failed on a 50-50 vote. (Roll call)

A two-thirds majority on either of the articles would have been needed to convict and remove Clinton.

Afterwards, a Democratic attempt to censure the president was indefinitely tabled by the Senate. (Full story)

Ten Republicans voted with all 45 Democrats to reject the perjury charge and five GOP senators voted against the obstruction of justice claim, denying both articles of impeachment a simple majority in the 100-member Senate.

Republican Sens. Richard Shelby of Alabama, Ted Stevens of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, John Chafee of Rhode Island, Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Jim Jeffords of Vermont, John Warner of Virginia and Slade Gorton of Washington all voted against the perjury article.

Sen. Fred Thompson was one of the Republican defectors on the perjury article

Collins, Snowe, Specter, Chafee and Jeffords also rejected the obstruction of justice article.

The votes bring the impeachment trial to an end, with the House prosecutors failing to convince the necessary two-thirds of the Senate the president should be removed from office for either of the two articles of impeachment passed by the House of Representatives in December.

After the court of impeachment officially adjourned, senators from both sides of the political aisle put the verdict aside and expressed relief that the trial was over. (Full story)

Reaction to the acquittal

"We kept the faith to our constitutional duty. And so while I feel that the two articles of impeachment were proven ... that was not the conclusion of the Senate, and so that is done," Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Mississippi) said.

Warner, who crossed party lines on the perjury charge, said the whole matter should now be "put to rest."

"This president is now a wounded president. We've got to come together as a nation and let no nation abroad perceive that we are weakened," Warner said.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott voted 'guilty' on both articles

"Thank God this is over," said freshman Sen. Charles Schumer, who served on the House Judiciary Committee that passed the articles of impeachment last year.

A number of Republican senators, including Gordon Smith of Oregon and Orrin Hatch of Utah, told reporters they were ready to work with the president.

"I intend to. I have a duty to and I intend to reach out to him and if he wants to reach out to me, he'll find me a constructive participant," said Smith.

But some Democrats were not ready to extend a bipartisan hand.

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) said, "History will now say on this impeachment, as they said on the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, that it was the radical Republicans. ... And that is going to be the judgment of history."

And while the House managers failed to muster even a majority of the Senate to support their articles, chief prosecutor Henry Hyde (R-Illinois) said he had no regrets.

"We fulfilled our oath of office to discharge our duty according to the Constitution and when elected officials do that, democracy works," Hyde said.

But some of the 13 Republican House mangers were not a content with the verdict.

House Manager Henry Hyde said he has no regrets over the impeachment

"My great fear is that future presidents will now flaunt the law in a more egregious manner ... and that's how they'll defend impeachments in the future," House manager Steve Buyer (R-Indiana) said. "Damage was done."

The members of Clinton's legal team went to lunch at The Bombay Club, a restaurant about two blocks from the White House, following the president's acquittal.

Clinton's private attorney, David Kendall, would not comment on Friday's verdict, simply saying, "We're going to lunch and we will enjoy it."

The votes

The Senate returned to open session shortly after 12 noon EST, and Lott told Chief Justice William Rehnquist the Senate was ready to vote.

After the chief justice warned all those in the Senate chamber that expressions of celebration or disapproval of the votes would not be tolerated, the clerk read the first article of impeachment and the voting began.

One by one the senators rose from their seats to answer Rehnquist's initial inquiry of "How say you?" With the only acceptable answers "guilty" or "not guilty," the two historic votes took less than 30 minutes. (full story)

"The Senate having tried William Jefferson Clinton, president of the United States, upon two articles of impeachment exhibited against him by the House of Representatives and two-thirds of the senators present not having found him guilty of the charges contained therein, it is therefore ordered and adjudged that the said William Jefferson Clinton be, and he hereby is, acquitted of the charges in the said articles," Rehnquist announced.

After Clinton had been acquitted, Rehnquist praised senators for how they conducted the trial.

"I leave you now a wiser but not a sadder man," Rehnquist said. "I've been impressed by the manner in which the majority leader and the minority leader have agreed on procedural rules in spite of the differences that separate their two parties on matters of substance."

Lott presented Rehnquist with a "golden gavel" for his service, and the full Senate stood for an ovation.

Before the vote, there was little doubt the president would be acquitted. The historic trial marked the second unsuccessful effort to unseat a president since the Senate failed to remove the only other impeached president, Andrew Johnson, in 1868.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist presided over the Senate impeachment trial

White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart told reporters Clinton was in the White House residence during the vote but did not watch it on television.

According to her associates, Lewinsky did watch the vote on television.

After the vote, the second and third floors of the Senate side of the Capitol were evacuated by police checking a bomb threat, officials said.

The Senate began its closed-door deliberations on the charges against Clinton Tuesday, with all 100 senators alloted 15 minutes each to comment.

Lott was among the senators who spoke in the final hours of deliberations on Friday. Among the others were Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) and Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia), one of the Senate's most respected authorities on Senate tradition and the Constitution. Byrd, one of the few Democrats who publicly agonized over his vote beforehand, voted "not guilty" on both counts.

Prior to the votes, five Republican senators had announced they would not vote to convict on either article of impeachment. Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine, was the last to publicly defect before the vote.

Saying "the claims against the president fail to reach the high standard" necessary for conviction, Collins released a statement Friday morning announcing she would "reluctantly" vote to acquit Clinton.

"In voting to acquit the president I do so with grave misgivings for I do not mean in any way to exonerate this man," Collins' statement read. "He lied under oath, he sought to interfere with the evidence, he tried to influence the testimony of key witnesses. And while it may not be a crime, the president exploited a very young star-stuck employee whom he then proceeded to smear in an attempt to destroy her credibility, her reputation and her life."

The trial began January 7, with Rehnquist presiding and the 100 senators sitting as "triers of fact." Lawmakers listened in silence as House managers made their case against the president and White House counsel presented his defense. Only three witnesses were deposed in the trial, Lewinsky, presidential friend Vernon Jordan and White House aide Sidney Blumenthal.

House managers and White House counsel made final arguments Monday before the Senate closed its doors to decide the president's fate. Senators deliberated in secret after a "sunshine" proposal to open the proceedings to the public failed on a 59-41 vote. Changing the impeachment trial's rules would have required a two-thirds margin, or 67 votes.

Even as the trial went on, a bipartisan group of senators was writing and rewriting a strong censure resolution condemning Clinton's behavior in trying to hide his relationship with Lewinsky.

Move to censure tabled

After the impeachment votes, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) attempted to enter her motion to censure. But Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas objected and since unanimous consent was required to consider the censure motion, Feinstein asked that the Senate rules be suspended.

But in a parliamentary move, Gramm asked for a vote to indefinitely table the motion to suspend the rules. That motion passed 56-4 and any consideration of censuring Clinton was postponed. Although 56 senators voted against the motion, censure supporters needed 67 votes to prevent the rule change motion from being tabled.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein entered a motion for censure

Despite the procedural defeat Friday and the waning support for censure, Feinstein told reporters she may still attempt to bring up the resolution later. "I feel it's the right thing to do," she said.

The censure resolution was entered into the Congressional Record Friday along with statements in support from some of its 38 cosponsors.

But many Republican senators said they believe the move to censure the resolution is dead.

"The problem with the censure resolution right now is that, I think, the Senate is tired," Lott said. "We've done what we were required to do under the Constitution."

Secretary of State receives judgment

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright received the certified document of the Senate judgment in the president's impeachment trial Friday afternoon from Gary Sisco, Secretary of the Senate.

After receiving the judgment, Albright signed a receipt for the document, a State Department official said.

The State Department legal office sent a copy of the signed document to White House Counsel Charles Ruff.

The official said the State Department has yet to determine where the signed original should be placed for historical purposes, but for now, it will be kept locked in a secure vault in the State Department building in Washington.

The State Department received the judgment because it holds the official seal of the United States which makes documents official.

The Congressional Act of 1789 placed the official seal of the United States in the custody of the Secretary of State. The seal is affixed to several types of documents, including proclamations of treaties, conventions, and agreements, and on envelopes carrying communications from the president to heads of other governments.

Former U.S. President Richard Nixon sent his letter of resignation to then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, to make it official with a seal.

Friday, February 12, 1999

• Clinton acquitted; president apologizes again
• How the senators voted on impeachment
• What's next for Clinton, Congress
• Politicians react to Clinton verdict
• Clinton apologizes to nation
• Transcript: President Clinton comments on end of Senate trial
• Clinton's evolving apology for the Lewinsky affair
• A reverent tone inside the Senate chamber
• Evening newspapers get Clinton scoop
• Text of Clinton e-mail sent to White House staff
• Weary nation welcomes the trial's end
• Bush sends video to Iowa activists
• Rehnquist returns to Supreme Court
• In history's annals, where will we find Monica?
• Linda Tripp says she would do it again
• Student: The New Yorker stole Monica Lisa

ARCHIVES

Search CNN/AllPolitics by           Enter keyword(s)       go    help