Lessons From the Last Impeachment Trial

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 2020

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As President Trump’s impeachment trial resumes this afternoon, we look back two decades to a time when Google was in its infancy, Y2K was stoking anxiety and partisanship in Congress was not quite so entrenched. That year, 1999, was the last time the Senate considered whether a president had committed high crimes and misdemeanors. So what has changed since the Senate trial of President Bill Clinton, and why is this impeachment such a different story? Guest: Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: Four journalists at The Times tell their stories of covering the last impeachment trial.Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader, announced rules to try to implement a speedy trial. Here’s how the framework differs from the Clinton precedent.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the New York Times, I'm Michael Bovaro, Miss Ifidae Lin.
0:04.0	Today, as the impeachment trial of President Trump
0:15.0	resumes this afternoon, senators remain bitterly divided
0:20.0	over every element of the proceedings.
0:23.0	Peter Baker, on why it was such a different story
0:28.0	during the last impeachment trial.
0:32.0	It's Tuesday, January 21st.
0:38.0	Peter Baker, what do you remember from this day almost exactly
0:43.0	21 years ago when the Senate trial in the impeachment
0:46.0	of President Bill Clinton begins?
0:49.0	Boy, it was just a fraught day.
0:52.0	You had Republicans and Democrats trying to figure out
0:55.0	how to get through it without blowing up the country.
1:00.0	And I was a White House reporter for the Washington Post
1:04.0	at the time.
1:05.0	I had been covering this story from the first days when the news
1:09.0	of the Ken Star investigation had broke.
1:11.0	Potentially, damaging cloud is hanging over the White House this morning.
1:14.0	CNN has confirmed that independent counsel Kenneth Starr
1:17.0	is investigating whether the president asked a former White House
1:21.0	to lie about a relationship she says are at least alleges
1:25.0	to have with the president.
	...

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