Monica Lewinsky

A picture from her U.S. Government ID

Monica Samille Lewinsky (born July 23, 1973) is an American woman who was thrust into the limelight after having an affair with President Bill Clinton.

The affair started while Lewinsky was working as an intern at the White House in 1995; its repercussions are often referred to as the Lewinsky scandal or "Monicagate." It severely affected Clinton's Presidency, and also made Lewinsky notorious.

Early life

Lewinsky was born in San Francisco, and grew up in Southern California on the west side of Los Angeles and in Beverly Hills. Her father was born in El Salvador but comes from a family of German Jewish immigrants, while her mother's family were Jewish immigrants from Russia. After transferring from Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California, she graduated with a psychology degree from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon in 1995. Afterward, Lewinsky moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked at the White House during Clinton's first term.

Scandal

Monica Lewinsky receives a hug from U.S. President Bill Clinton during a fundraising event in Washington, D.C., October 1996

While working as a paid staffer at the Pentagon, the former White House intern had a short-term sexual relationship with the President. Clinton and Lewinsky both later agreed that the relationship involved oral sex but not sexual intercourse. The news of this affair, and the resulting investigation and impeachment of the President, became known as the Lewinsky scandal.

Lewinsky's confidante Linda Tripp was secretly recording her telephone conversations with the younger woman regarding the affair with Clinton. Later, after Lewinsky had submitted a false affidavit in the Paula Jones case, denying any physical relationship with Clinton and after Lewinsky had attempted to persuade Tripp to lie under oath in the Jones case, Tripp gave the tapes to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, and these tapes added to his ongoing investigation into the Whitewater scandal. Starr broadened his investigation to include investigating Lewinsky, Clinton and others for possible perjury and subornation of perjury in the Jones case. Ironically, it has been alleged that Tripp also tipped off the press to keep an eye on federal employee Jennifer Fitzgerald, who was said to have had an indiscreet affair with then-President George H. W. Bush. However, Tripp has publicly denied that allegation as "ludicrous" and "a complete fabrication." [1] Tripp, after speaking with Lewinsky, reported her findings to right-wing literary agent Lucianne Goldberg.

Admissions

Lewinsky admitted that her relationship with Clinton involved oral sex in the Oval Office and in adjoining rooms in the West Wing. This was documented in the Starr report, which eventually led to President Clinton's impeachment trial on the allegations of perjury and obstruction of justice regarding the affair.

Clinton had previously been dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct, most notably in regard to a relationship with singer and former Arkansas state employee Gennifer Flowers and an encounter with Arkansas state employee Paula Jones (née Corbin) in a Little Rock hotel room in which Jones claimed that Clinton had exposed himself to her. These affairs allegedly occurred during Clinton's time as Governor of Arkansas. Lewinsky's name actually surfaced during legal proceedings connected to the latter matter, when Jones's lawyers sought corroborating evidence of Clinton's conduct to substantiate Jones's allegations.

Clinton denied having had "a sexual affair," "sexual relations," or "a sexual relationship" with Lewinsky while under oath [2], and later claimed "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" in a nationally televised White House news conference. The line later became a punchline for its technical verity but deceptive nature, based on one's definition of "sexual relations."

In addition, Clinton said, "There is no sexual relationship [with Lewinsky]," a statement which he later said was truthful depending on one's definition of "is" (i.e. he was not, at the time he made that statement, still having a sexual relationship with Lewinsky). Under pressure from Starr, whom Clinton learned had obtained from Lewinsky a blue dress with Clinton's semen stain, as well as testimony from Lewinsky that the president had inserted a cigar into her vagina, Clinton admitted on August 17, 1998, that he misled the American people and that he had had an "inappropriate" relationship with Lewinsky. Clinton denied having committed perjury because, in his opinion, oral sex was not a sexual act.

In addition, relying upon the definition of "sexual relations" as worded by Judge Susan Webber Wright, who was hearing the Paula Jones case, Clinton claimed that because certain acts were performed on him, not by him, he did not engage in sexual relations. Lewinsky's testimony to the Starr Commission, however, contradicted Clinton's claim of being totally passive in their encounters. Clinton's lawyer would later explain that different people can remember the same events in different ways.

The affair led to a period of pop culture celebrity for Lewinsky, both as an unlikely sex symbol and as a younger-generation nexus of a political storm that was both lighthearted, and extremely serious at the same time. The neologism "Lewinsky" is now part of the American lexicon meaning fellatio, though the frequency of other pop culture references and jokes involving Lewinsky have decreased over time.

After the scandal

By her own account, Lewinsky survived the intense media attention by knitting. She ran her own business, selling her own brand of handbags, but she closed this business in 2004. She was also the host of the short-lived reality television dating program called Mr. Personality (2003). Lewinsky is currently studying towards an M.Sc. in Social Psychology at the London School of Economics.

Lewinsky criticized Clinton's autobiography, My Life, saying, "He could have made it right with the book, but he hasn't. He is a revisionist of history. He has lied." She continued, "I really didn't expect him to go into detail about our relationship" in the memoir, she said. "But if he had and he'd done it honestly, I wouldn't have minded.... I did though at least expect him to correct the false statements he made when he was trying to protect the Presidency. Instead, he talked about it as though I had laid it all out there for the taking. I was the buffet and he just couldn't resist the dessert," she was quoted as saying.

"That's not how it was. This was a mutual relationship, mutual on all levels, right from the way it started and all the way through. ... I don't accept that he had to completely desecrate my character." [3]

References

* Monica's Story by Andrew Morton (Paperback 1999 Publisher: St. Marshal's Press ISBN 0312973624)
* One Scandalous Story: Clinton, Lewinsky, and Thirteen Days That Tarnished American Journalism by Marvin L. Kalb
* Our Monica, Ourselves: The Clinton Affair and the Public Interest (Sexual Cultures) by Lauren Berlant and Lisa Duggan

External links

* Starr Report: Nature of President Clinton's Relationship with Monica Lewinsky
* A Guide to the Monica Lewinsky Story, also: The Starr Report; Tripp Tapes; Articles of Impeachment; The "Stalker" Tale
* Monica Lewinsky profile in the Washington Post (January 24, 1998)
* Timeline from Washington Post
* Lewinsky profile in New York magazine, 2001
* Urban Dictionary defines the slang term "Lewinsky"

{{Persondata