Articles of Impeachment of Bill Clinton

Audience

In the broadest sense, of course, the audience for the Articles of Impeachment was the American people. The Republican leadership in the House of Representatives hoped to demonstrate to the public that President Clinton deserved removal from office, primarily because he had abused their trust, subverted the law, and injured the institution of the presidency.

The partisan nature of the impeachment articles—almost all votes on the investigation of Clinton and on Articles of Impeachment were along party lines—meant that the audience for impeachment, strictly speaking, became the Republican Party and its efforts to destroy a president they believed was harming the national interest.

The House Republicans, however, also had to consider a more specific audience: their Republican colleagues in the Senate, who had the responsibility to consider whether Clinton should be removed from office. At least some Senate Republicans doubted the wisdom of such a drastic measure—even if they believed their House colleagues had a good case. The vote in the Senate was along party lines, and the failure of Senate Republicans to enlist even a few Democrats was telling and produced a far different outcome from the impeachment of Richard Nixon, who resigned rather than face a Senate trial. The case for impeachment—arguably a strong one—simply did not convince the American people once it was presented to them.