--- title: How Trump's Impeachment Inquiry Compares to Clinton, Nixon description: Trump isn't the only president who has struggled to navigate impeachment inquiries. Here's how Trump compares to Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. canonical: https://time.com/5732352/trump-impeachment-clinton-nixon/ author: Abby Vesoulis article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-11-19T21:09:51.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:52:29.315Z article:section: Politics og:title: How Trump's Impeachment Inquiry Compares to Clinton, Nixon og:description: Trump isn't the only president who has struggled to navigate impeachment inquiries. Here's how Trump compares to Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. og:url: https://time.com/5732352/trump-impeachment-clinton-nixon/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb514ff536bb8a8d4/698a0636929fad112dbf549d/trump-impeachment-testimony-pelosi.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Trump's not the only President who has tried to make deals with investigators og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Trump's Impeachment Inquiry Compares to Clinton, Nixon twitter:description: Trump isn't the only president who has struggled to navigate impeachment inquiries. Here's how Trump compares to Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb514ff536bb8a8d4/698a0636929fad112dbf549d/trump-impeachment-testimony-pelosi.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton Also Pushed Back on Impeachment Investigations. But Trump Is Taking It a Step Further > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME D.C. Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition D.C. Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington. D.C. Brief goes beyond the Washington headlines to explain the politics, personalities and power dynamics shaping what happens next. 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It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: A Visual Timeline of the Monica Lewinsky Scandal [Watch (HLS stream): A Visual Timeline of the Monica Lewinsky Scandal](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/HPrA9SSS.m3u8) (4:55)  _Published 2018-05-04. In 1998, Americans were divided over Bill Clinton's affair with a White House intern. In the 20 years since, those feelings have only grown more complicated._  by [Abby Vesoulis](https://time.com/author/abby-vesoulis/)  ## Abby Vesoulis Nov 19, 2019 9:09 PM UTC  Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton also tried to negotiate conditions for the impeachment-related investigations they faced. Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton also tried to negotiate conditions for the impeachment-related investigations they faced. Zach Gibson—Getty Images  by [Abby Vesoulis](https://time.com/author/abby-vesoulis/)  ## Abby Vesoulis Nov 19, 2019 9:09 PM UTC On Nov. 17, House Speaker [Nancy Pelosi](https://time.com/5388347/nancy-pelosi-democrats-feminism/) said President Donald Trump has “every opportunity to present his case” before the House Intelligence Committee in its [investigation](https://time.com/5732117/impeachment-hearings-live-vindman-volker/) into whether he used his executive powers as leverage to gain foreign help against a political rival. “The President could come right before the committee and talk, speak all the truth that he wants if he wants,” Pelosi said during an appearance on CBS’ _Face The Nation._ Unsurprisingly, Trump didn’t jump at the chance to appear before the committee in person, but he did say he might be willing to take Pelosi up on her suggestion to provide his written version of events. “Even though I did nothing wrong, and don’t like giving credibility to this No Due Process Hoax, I like the idea & will, in order to get Congress focused again, strongly consider it!” Trump tweeted on Monday. > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1196425928768929792) It’s not the first time that Trump has found himself at the negotiating table with investigators. In November 2018, Trump cut a deal to provide written testimony to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, after Mueller repeatedly attempted to get Trump to participate in a sit-down interview. Talks over a face-to-face conversation dragged on for over a year, according to Mueller’s office. The team [decided](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-mueller-subpoena/mueller-says-did-not-subpoena-trump-because-he-wanted-to-expedite-end-of-probe-idUSKCN1UJ2Q7?ref=hvper.com&utm%5Fsource=hvper.com&utm%5Fmedium=website) it “did not want to exercise the subpoena powers because of the necessity of expediting the end of the investigation,” Mueller told the House Intelligence Committee in July. Ultimately, Mueller’s report contained 23 pages of un-redacted questions and Trump’s answers, including some about Democrats’ hacked emails. On Monday, a lawyer for the House [said](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/18/us/politics/trump-mueller-impeachment.html) Congressional Democrats are now investigating whether Trump lied in those responses. Trump, a self-described master negotiator, is not the first embattled Commander-in-Chief who has struggled to navigate how to participate in their own impeachment-related inquiries. But [in the run-up to elections](https://time.com/longform/donald-trump-2020/), Trump’s team has pushed back harder than previous administrations by restricting investigators’ access to other officials, observers who were involved in previous presidential probes say. When President Richard Nixon was facing allegations that he attempted to cover up the Watergate break-in, he initially declined to adhere with Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox’s subpoenas requiring that he share tape recordings of White House conversations he had kept, arguing the principle of executive privilege protected them. After Nixon’s subpoena appeals were denied, the former President offered to allow a Democratic Senator to review the tapes and provide Cox with verification that the summaries Nixon provided were accurate. Cox declined to accept Nixon’s [proposed compromise](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/05/11/the-saturday-night-massacre-your-commander-in-chief-has-given-you-an-order/), and was subsequently fired for this refusal, setting in motion the infamous Saturday Night Massacre that underpinned Nixon’s eventual resignation. Michael Conway, an attorney who served as counsel for the House Judiciary Committee during its impeachment inquiry into Nixon, says Trump has gone further than Nixon in his attempt to control what information investigators have access to during their inquiry. “Nixon was equally resistant to turning materials over and documents, but he did allow people to testify,” Conway says, referencing the White House’s urging that aides not comply with the Democrat-led investigation. “He was not as brazen about claiming some umbrella privilege for everything that is said by any of his aides.” President Bill Clinton also tried to barter with investigators amid mounting concerns that he had engaged in inappropriate sexual relations with 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky and lied about their relationship under oath. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr initially subpoenaed Clinton, but later withdrew the order after Clinton agreed to provide voluntary testimony under [predetermined conditions.](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/us/politics/clinton-testimony-grand-jury.html) Prosecutors only had four hours to question the President at the White House, and Clinton’s White House and personal lawyers were permitted to be in the room with him. Trump and Clinton employed similar strategies to combat the allegations against their administrations, with both leaders referring to the respective investigations as “witch hunts,” says Paul Rosenzweig, who served as a senior counsel under Starr. And while Clinton pushed back against full cooperation with their probes, Trump’s team took it further, Rosenzweig says, when White House Counsel Pat Cipollone asserted the Administration would not comply with the inquiry he called “illegitimate” and “constitutionally invalid” in an [Oct. 8 letter](https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/letter-from-white-house-counsel-pat-cipollone-to-house-leaders/0e1845e5-5c19-4e7a-ab4b-9d591a5fda7b/) addressed to Pelosi and other members of Democratic leadership. “A blanket statement of non-cooperation is more extreme than the non-cooperation that was almost blanket from Clinton, but never expressed that way. As with so many things, Trump’s lawyers are saying the silent part out loud,” Rosenzweig says. Of course, Clinton didn’t have his re-election to worry about, and neither did Nixon. As the inquiry centering on Trump’s conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to unfold, Trump’s legal team has to ensure whatever action he takes — and whatever testimony he does or doesn’t provide — ultimately galvanizes his support base come 2020. Given those stakes, Trump’s team of lawyers will do everything they can to keep the President from testifying at all, Rosenzweig says. “There’s no way that his attorneys are going to let him testify. They’ll throw themselves in front of him physically if they have to.” ## Transcript In 1998, Americans were divided over Bill Clinton's affair with a White House intern. Here's a guide to how it happened. In 1994, former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones sued Bill Clinton for sexual harassment, arguing that he propositioned her when he was governor. A legal group working on the case in 1998 received an anonymous tip that the president had a relationship with the Lewinsky and intern first chief of staff that piqued their interest, since it could be used to argue this was a pattern of behavior. On January 7th, 1998, the Lewinsky filed a sworn affidavit in the Jones lawsuit saying she had never had a relationship with Clinton, but she did not know that a close friend, Linda Tripp, had been keeping conversations with her about the affair. Five days after the affidavit was filed, Tripp gave independent counsel Kenneth Starr, 20 hours of taped phone calls. Starr had been investigating the Clintons of a real estate venture known as Whitewater, but the recordings allowed him to get permission on January 16th to investigate whether Lewinsky had lied under oath in a deposition in the Jones suit the next day. Clinton denied the affair as well. This turned out to be a key moment of his presidency. That same day, online news outlet The Drudge Report published a story claiming that Newsweek was sitting on a story about Clinton's affair with an intern. It later published another story that Lewinsky had a blue cocktail dress with Clinton's bodily fluids on it. Clinton again denied the affair, this time on nationally broadcast television, saying, I. Did not have sexual relations with that woman. Ms.. Lewinsky. On January 27th, Hillary Clinton echoed the denial, arguing in an interview on the Today Show that the charges came from a vast. Right wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president. As the month drew to a close, a federal judge ruled that the Jones lawyers could not look into the Lewinsky claim as part of their lawsuit. But the Starr investigation continued on a separate path. In early February, Lewinsky's mother appeared before a grand jury. She had been suspected of encouraging her daughter to lie to Jones's lawyers. After three days of questioning, Starr granted her immunity in exchange for handing over the blue dress. As the summer began, the July issue of Vanity Fair appeared on newsstands featuring glamor shots of Lewinsky, a PR decision that was harshly criticized. On July 27, Lewinsky met with Starr's prosecutors in New York City, and they announced an immunity deal for her the next day. Clinton then agreed to testify before the grand jury voluntarily. In August, the president provided a blood sample to compare his DNA to the stains in the blue dress. That night, Lewinsky and Clinton testified to the grand jury with the president's testimony taken by closed circuit TV. He admitted to inappropriate intimate contact, but also said that he had given accurate testimony previously. Famously quibbling over the definition of is. Later that evening, he spoke to the nation in a televised address. In a deposition in January, I was asked questions about my relationship with Monica Lewinsky. While my answers were legally accurate. I did not volunteer their information. Indeed, I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact. It was wrong. The next month, Congress received two copies of Stars 445 page report on the investigation and supporting evidence. The Star Report, along with transcripts of Lewinsky trips, were later released to the public. On October eight, the House of Representatives voted to begin an impeachment inquiry. Despite the controversy and the impeachment, President Clinton remained popular in polls and Hillary Clinton saw her poll numbers rise as well. During the midterm elections in November, Democrats did unusually drop in mid-November. Clinton settled the sexual harassment lawsuit with Jones, which he kickstarted the scandal, paying her $850,000 and admitting nothing. During the lame duck session of Congress in the summer 19th, the House voted to impeach Clinton and to charges that he committed perjury in his August 17 federal grand jury testimony and that he prevented, obstructed and impeded the administration of justice. As 1999 open, the Senate began its constitutionally mandated impeachment trial with the Supreme Court's chief justice presiding for February 1213 months after the scandal began. The Senate voted to acquit Clinton on both charges. The respondent, William Jefferson Clinton, president of the United States, is not guilty as charged. Later that day. Clinton apologized to the American public in an address from the White House. 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 on the American people. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5732352/trump-impeachment-clinton-nixon/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5732352/trump-impeachment-clinton-nixon/"},"headline":"Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton Also Pushed Back on Impeachment Investigations. But Trump Is Taking It a Step Further","datePublished":"2019-11-19T21:09:51.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:52:29.315Z","description":"Trump isn't the only president who has struggled to navigate impeachment inquiries. 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