Newt Gingrich says impeaching Clinton over sex scandal was a mistake

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Source: msn/The Independent

12h


Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich admitted in an interview that it was a “mistake” to impeach former President Bill Clinton over the sex scandal involving Monica Lewinsky, saying it drew attention away from Clinton’s perjury charge.

Gingrich, a Republican congressman from Georgia and Speaker of the House, led the 1998 House impeachment inquiry into Clinton, which arose after the affair between Clinton and Lewinsky became public. But reflecting on his role to “Pod Force One with Miranda Devine,” the Republican expressed remorse.

“I think it was a mistake because the real problem wasn’t Lewinsky,” Gingrich said. “The real problem was he had committed perjury in a case involving sexual harassment while he was governor.”. Gingrich was referring to Clinton’s comments stemming from a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by Paula Jones in 1994, when Clinton was still governor of Arkansas. In a deposition, Clinton denied Jones’s allegations, though he settled out of court with her in 1998.

Gingrich said the perjury stemming from that deposition was more serious than the affair with Lewinsky, an unpaid White House intern. “I realized we were really off course in August of that year,” Gingrich explained, saying that his two daughters had pointed out that the fallout from the scandal wasn’t worth the effort to impeach Clinton. “I realized at that point I had completely misunderstood how the culture was evolving,” Gingrich said.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/newt-gingrich-says-impeaching-clinton-over-sex-scandal-was-a-mistake/ar-AA24d74z