Chapter 41 - The Resurgence of Conservatism 1980-2000

 

Outline

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The Election of Ronald Reagan, 1980

• Conservatism was picking up new strength, headed by religious groups
• Most were less concerned about economy, and more about social issues
  • Abortion, homosexuality, feminism, affirmative action, prayer in schools, tougher punishments for crimes
• This was titled the "New Right" party
• Reagan was a great choice for this "New Right" presidency
  • Was agianst activist government, and tried to be like FDR
  • Fought for the common man
  • FDR thought big business was bad, but Reagan blamed big gov't
• Reagan had a group of thinkers called the "neoconservatives"
  • Norman Podhoretz (magazine editor) and Irving Kristol (magazine editor) wanted free-market capitalism and were very anti-Soviet. Didn't like welfare programs or affirmative action. Supported individualism and family.
• Reagan started as an actor, then became a politician (kind of like the current Gov. of Cali...)
  • He was governor of CA also
  • Republican Presidential nomination went to Reagan
• Many Americans viewed Carter's administration as confusing, and many hated the "double-digit" inflation
  • Democrats began to dislike Carter, too
  • They tried to nominate Edward Kennedy (last Kennedy brother), but he was too liberal (and there was some shady stuff in his past)
  • Carter was the Democratic candidate
• Democrats:
  • 41% popular vote, 49 electoral votes
  • The only insult Carter could use against Reagan was that he might start a nuclear war, but might not
• Republicans:
  • 51% popular vote, 489 electoral votes
  • Due to Reagan's acting skills, he was very popular, especially on TV
• Independent:
  • 7% popular vote, no electoral votes
  • John Anderson
• Republicans got control of Senate, too

The Reagan Revolutiuon

• Reagan's inauguration was made triumphant w/ the release of the Iranian hostages
• Assembled a cabinet of the "best and the brightest" and he put important decisions into their hands
  • included controvercial James Watt
    • He was a result of the "Sagebrush Rebellion"
      • an anti-Washington movement that protested federal control of natural resources in the West
    • He wanted to limit the EPA and drill for oil (stopped by environmentalists)
  • Watt resigned after making a public ethnic joke
• according to Reagan, gov't was the problem and sought to limit it by limiting it's spending
  • message found a receptive audience
  • fed spending had increased from 18% of the GNP to 23%
  • shifting from defence to entitlement programs such as social security
    • counter-"new deal" people finally popped up
    • People were tired of paying to give money to others
    • California did a tax strike that lowered property taxes, and made the government pay more
• Reagan proposed cuts of $35 billion
  • mostly from social programs
  • wooed southern conservative democrats ("boll weevils") to his support
• shot on March 6, 1981
  • recovered quickly and 12 days later was back on the job w/ huge support

The Battle of the Budget

• Congress was caught up in Reagan's popularity, too, so they approved his budget plans
  • $695 billion of expenditures, with about $38 billion defecit...
  • To get this money, Congress cut up some of the Great Society programs
• Reagan wanted to take down the welfare idea, and to reverse the political policies of recent times
  • He took serious power of the presidency, kind of like LBJ did
• Part II of the budget was tax cuts
  • 25% reductions in 3 years
  • He used his acting skills in asking for Congress to pass the tax-cut bill, and won
  • Congress lowered individual taxes, reduced fed. estate taxes, and made tax-free savings plans for small investors
  • "Supply-side" economics
  • Budget discipline + tax cuts = stimulated new investment, boosted productivity, dramatic economic growth, less federal defecit
• This was kind of shot down when the country entered the greatest recession since the Great Depression
  • 11% unemployment, closed businesses, bank failures
  • Importing Japanese cars hurt our automobile industry
  • People (democrats) said that Reagan's tax cuts hurt the lesser man, and favored the rich
  • Reagan just let the recession go and waited for the supply-side economics (Reaganomics) to kick in
    • It did get better in 1983, but:
  • Gaps widened between rich and poor
  • Yuppies emerged (young urban professionals)
    • They became a symbol of the 1980s

Regan Renews the Cold War

• Regan saw no reason to soften up toward the Soviet Union when he entered the White House
• The Soviets continued their war in Afghanistan and Regan continued to condemn the Kremlin
• Regan believed in negotiating with the Soviet Union only from a position of overwhelming strength.
• His strategy for dealing with them was by enormously expanding U.S. military capabilities.
  • he could threaten the Soviets with an expensive new round of the arms race.
  • The American economy could better bear this new financial vurden the the Soviet system could.
  • Desperate to avoid economic ruin Kremlin leaders would come to the bargaining table
• The strategy wagered the enormous sum of Reagans defense budgets on the hope that the other side would not call Washingtons bluff and start a new cycle of arms race competition.
• In March 1983 he announced his intention to pursue a high-technology missile-defense system called the Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly known as Star Wars.
• His plan called for orbiting battle stations in space that could fire laser beams or other forms of concentrated energy to vaporize intercontinental missiles on liftoff.
• Most scientists considered this an impossible goal
• The deeper logic of SDI lay in its fit with Reagans overall Soviet Strategy. By pitching the arms contest onto a stratospheric plane of high technology and astronomical expense it would further force the Kremlin's hand.
• Experts who did not dismiss SDI as ludicrous feared that Star Wars research might be ruinously costly, ultimately unworkable, and fatally destabilizing to the distasteful but effective "balance of terror" that had kept the nuclear peace.
• Scientific and strategic doubts combined to constrain congressional funding for SDI through the remainder of Reagan's term
• Relations with the Soviets worsened further in late 1981 when the gov't of Poland clamped martial law on the troubled country/
• Reagan saw the heavy fist of the Kremlin inside this Polish iron glove and he imposed economic sanctions on Poland and the USSR alike.
• Relations with Soviets grew even more tense in Sep. 1983 when they blasted a Korean passenger airliner from the skies that had inexplicably violated Soviet airspace, hundreds of civilians including Americans died.
• By the end of 1983 all armscontrol negotiations with the soviets were broken off.

Troubles Abroad

• Israel badly strainded its bonds of friendship w/ U.S. by continuing to allow new settlements to be established in the occupied territory of the Jordan River's West Bank.
• Israel futher risked the stakes in the Middle East in June 1982 when it invaded neighboring Lebanon, seeking to suppress once and for all the guerrilla bases from which Palestinian fighters harassed beleaguered Israel.
• The Palestinians were subdued but Lebanon was plunged into armed chaos.
• President Reagan was obliged to send American troops to Beanon in 1983 as part of an international peace-keeping force, but their presence did not bring peace.
• A suicide bomber crashed an explosives-laden truck into a U.S. Marine barracks on Oct. 23,1983 killing more than two hundred marines.
• President Reagan soon after withdrew the remaining troops, while suffering no political damage from this horrifying and humiliating attack.
• A leftist dictator of Nicaragua had deposed the long-time dictator of Nicaragua in 1979, President Carter had tried to ignore the hotly anit-American rhetoric of the revolutionaries but Reagan took their rhetoric at face value and hurled back at them some hot language of his own.
• He accused the Sandinistas of turning their country into a forward base for Soviet and Cuban military penetration of all of Central America.
• Brandishing photos taken from spy planes, administration spokespeople claimed that Nicaraguan leftists were shipping weapons to revolutionary forces in El Salvador, torn by violence since coup in 1979.
• Reagan sent military "advisers" to prop up the pro-American gov't of El Salvador
• In Oct. 1983 Reagan dispatched a heavy-firepower invasion force to the island of Grenada where a military coup had killed the prime minister and brought Marxists to power.

Round Two for Reagan

• Democrats:
  • Walter Mondale
  • Named VP as GeraldINE (as in woman) Ferraro
  • Mondale lost partly because was VP for Carter
  • 13 electoral voets, 36,459,613 popular
• Republicans:
  • Obviously Reagan
  • 525 electoral votes, 52,609,797 popular
• Foreign policy dominated his second term in office
  • Gorbachev, the soviet leader was also in the world news for glasnost ("openess") and perestroika("restructuring") of the Soviet Union
    • both policies called for the shrinking of their military machine and sending the money from their into the civilian economy
    • ceased to deploy intermediate-range forces aimed at the West on April 1985
    • friendlyness towards the West
    • Started to turn the Communist country into a little bit more Democratic (allowed more free speech)
  • several meetings between G and R
    • came up w/ the INF treaty which was a victory for the world
  • both ended the Cold War pretty much
• other moves in foreign policy included attacks against dictators and terrorists

The Iran-Contra Imbroglio

• 2 foreign-policy probs seemed impossible to solve to Reagan:
  • continuing # of capturing of Am. hostages, seized by Muslim extremeist groups in Lebanon
  • continuing grip on power of left-wing Sandinista gov't in Nicaragua
• Reagan repeatedly requested for military aid to the contra rebels fighting against the Sandinista regime but they repeatedly refused
• unknown to Am. public, Washington officials saw a link btwn the probs of the Middle Eastern hostages & the Central American Sandinistas
  • 1985, Am. diplomats secretly arranged arms sales to the under attack Iranians in return for Iranian aid in obtaining the release of Am. hostages held by Middle Eastern terrorists
  • atleast 1 hostage was set free while $ from the payment for the arms was diverted to the contras [$$ was given from us to the contras]
  • this violated a Congressional ban on military aid to the Nicaraguan rebels as well as Reagan's vow to never negotiate w. terrorists
• November 1986, new broke out of the secret dealings which caused some major controversy
  • Reagan claimed he was innocent & ignorant of the activities but a congressional committee condemned the "secrecy, deception, and disdain of the law" shown by the administration officials & concluded that "if the president did not know what his national security advisers were doing, he should have."
  • criminal indictments were later brought against several prominent individuals including Oliver North [marine colonel], John Poindexter [North's boss & Admiral @ the National Security Council], and Caspar Weinberger [Secretary of Defense]
  • North & Poindexter were found guilty of criminal behavior, but convictions were eventually reversed on appeal and Weingberger received a presidential pardon before he was formally tried
• the Iran-contra affair cast a dark shadow over the Reagan record in foreign policy, which tends to obscure the pres.'s outstanding achievement in est.ing a new relationship w/ the Soviets
• Reagan was now seen as lazy, senile, and unattentive to details of policy
• critics called the actor-turned-president who acted the role of the presidency w/o really understanding the script
• yet Reagan still remained one of the most popular & beloved presidents in modern American history

Regan's Economic Legacy

• Reagan took office w. the promise to invigorate the Am. economy by rolling back gov't regulations, lowering taxes, & balancing the budget
  • he eased by regulatory rules, he pushed major tax reform bills thu Congress in 1981 & 1986
  • but a balanced budget was WAAAAAAY out of reach
• the promised supply-sided economic theory: lower taxes would acutlaly INcrease gov't revenue b/c they would so stimulate the ecomony as a whole
  • tax reduction + huge increases in military spending = "revenue hole" of $200 billion annual deficits
  • adding $2 trillion to the nat'l debt [more than all of Reagan's predecessors combined , including pres.'s of WWI&WWII
• The Reagan years constituted great ecomonic failure
  • due to the fact that our debt was fincanced by foreign leaders [esp. Japanese] the deficits basically guaranteed that future generations would have to either work harder than their parents , lower their standard of living, or both to pay their foreign creditors when the bills came due
• yawning deficits encouraged Congress in 1986 to pass legislation commanding a balanced budget by 1991
  • this drastic measure wasn't enough to close the gap btwn the fed. gov't's income & expenditures, & the continuously growing nat'l debt
• If the deficits represented an economic failure, strangely, they also formed a kind of political triumph
  • Reagan had wanted to slow the growth of gov't & esp. to block or even repeal the social programs launched in the era a of LBJ's Great Society
  • by appearing to make new social spending both practically & politically impossible for the future, the deficits served exactly that purpose
  • this achieved Reagan's hights political objective: the containment of the welfare state
• Regan therefore guaranteed the long-term up-keep of his dearest political valued to a degree that few presidents have managed to achieve
  • "Reaganomics" would be large & durable
• Another legacy of 1980s: the sharp reversal of a long-tem tred toward a more fair distribution of income & an increasing squeeze on the middle class
  • early 1990s, median household income acutally declined from $33,500 [1989] to about $31,000 [1993]
  • whether Reagan's policies were to blame or to more deeply running economic currents remained controversial

The Religious Right

• Religion pervaded American politics in the 1980s, esp. conspicuous was a coalition of conservative, evangelical Christians known as the relgious right.
• In 1979 the Reverand Jerry Falwell founded a political organization called the Moral Majority.
  • Falwell preached with great success against sexual permissiveness, abortion, feminism, and the spread of gay rights.
• In its first two years the Moral Majority registered between 2 million and 3 million voters.
• Members of the religious right were sometimes called "movement conservatives"
• In many ways the religious right of the 1980s was a reflection of, or answer to, sixties radicalism.
• Feminists in the 1960s declared that "personal was political", the religious right did the same.
• What had in the past been personal matters- gender roles, homosexuality, and prayer- became the organizing ground for a powerful political movement.
• The religious right practiced a form of " identity politics". But rather than defining themselves as Hispanic voters or gay voters, the declared themselves Christian or pro-life voters.
• They even mirrored the tactics of civil disobedience. Protesters in the 1980s blocked entrances to abortion clinics like protestors in the 1960s had blocked entrances to draft offices
• Several leaders of the religious right fell from grace in the latter part of the decade.

Conservatism in the Courts

• the courts were Reagan's principle instrument in the "cultural wars" demanded by the religious right
• by the end of his time, Reagan had appointed a near-majority of all sitting judges
  • he had also named 3 conservative-minded justices to the US Supreme Court
    • Sandra Day O'Connor was one of them & the first woman on the bench ever
• Reaganism rejected 2 great icons of liberal political culture:
  • affirmative action
  • abortion
• The Court showed new conservative colors [1984] when it decreed that union rules about job seniority could outweigh affirmative-action concerns in guiding promotion policies in the city's fire dept.
• 1989, Ward's Cove Parking v. Antonia AND Martin v. Wilks
  • in both cases, the Court made it more difficult to argue descrimination in the workplace as well as giving white men argument that they were victims of reverse discrimination [by employers who followed affirmative-action processes practices]
    • 1991, Cong. passes legislation that partically reversed the effects of those decisions
• 1973, Roe v. Wade, the Court had prohibited the states from making laws that interfered w. a woman's right to an abortion durith the eraly months of pregnancy
  • "pro-choice" advocates built ther cases & foundations on this
• July 1989, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services
  • it didn't completely overturn Roe but it seriously compromised Roe's protection of abortion rights
• Planned Parenthood v. Casey [1992]
  • ruled that states could restrict access to abortion as long as they didn't place an "undue burden" on the woman
  • this also said how a wife didn't have to inform her husband, but children had to inform their parents as well as other restrictions
• Right-to-life advocates @ 1st were super happy about the Webster decision but the Court's ruling also stimulated pro-choice organization into a new militancy
  • damaging, troublesome battle loomed as state legislatures across the land confronted abortion
  • this painful cultural conflict over the unborn was also part of Reagan era's gift to the future

Referendum on Reganism in 1988

• Republicans lost control of the Senate in November 1986
  • Democrats hoped the “Reagan Revolution” may be vulnerable
• Much of Reagan’s administration showed unethical behavior
  • The Secretary of Labor stepped down in 1985 for charges of fraud and larceny (later acquitted)
  • The President’s personal White House aide was convicted of perjury in 1988
  • Attorney General Edwin Meese was investigated for influence-peddling
  • Regan’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development was investigated for fraud and favoritism
• Signs of economic trouble seemed open to political opportunities for the Democrats
  • The Federal deficit and the International Trade Deficit grew largely
  • Oil prices fell and ruined the Southwest, lowering real estate prices, undermining the savings-and-loans institutions
    • Would cost $500 billion for a federal rescue operation
  • More banks folded and buyouts washed Wall Street
  • “Black Monday” (October 19, 1987)- the stock market dropped 508 points in one day
• The Democrats wanted to cash in on the ethical and economic anxieties
  • Their front runner had to drop out for charges of sexual misconduct
• George Bush defeated Michael Dukakis for the presidency

The Persian Gulf Crisis

• The end of the Cold War didn’t mean the end of all wars
  • Bush sent airborne troops to Panama to capture dictator and drug lord Manuel Noriega
  • In the summer of 1990 Saddam Hussein sent armies to overrun the oil rich nation of Kuwait
    • He wanted to control the oil to pay for huge war bills and to control the entire Persian Gulf
• Ironically America had helped build up Hussein’s military to defeat Iran
• On August 2, 1990 Saddam’s troops came roaring into Kuwait
• The UN couldn’t remove the troops with a failed embargo, so an ultimatum was sent, leave Kuwait or we’ll “use all necessary means” to expel the troops. The US lead this military development with the contribution of 539,000 troops, 28 other nations contributed 270,000 troops

• Congress approved the use of force on January 12

Fighting "Operation Desert Storm"

• On January 16, 1991 the US and UN allies launched war on Iraq
  • For 37 days warplanes pummeled targets in Kuwait and Iraq
  • This was a display of high tech precision-targeting modern warfare
  • Iraq responded by launching several short range missiles on Saudi Arabia and Israel
    • These did no significant military damage
• Saddam threatened to engage in “the mother of all wars” with his chemical and biological weapons
  • Other tactics were to release an oil slick into the Gulf to stop all amphibious assault and the ignition of oil wells
• On February 23 the land war began- lasted 4 days
  • The Un forces suffered light casualties, Iraq’s were destroyed or captured quickly
  • On February 17 Saddam accepted a cease fire and Kuwait was liberated
• Troops returned to a warm welcome unlike Vietnam

Bush on the Home Front

• Bush said when elected he was trying to make a gentler America
  • He did this by signing the Americans with disabilaties act which prevented discrimination
  • And with a water projects bill in 1992 which made much more water available to the wests cities
• He was against bills that made scholarships for minorities and against civil rights legislation that would make it easier for employees to proves discrimination
• He also nominated Clarence Thomas a black man against affirmative action to replace Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court
  • Though a professor Anita Hill accused him of sexual harrasment he was still confirmed
• After this confirmation women became more against the Republican party mainly because of the abortion issue
• The economy was Bushs weakest point during his presidency the budget deficit reached 250 billion and unemployment was 7% national
• In 1990 to try and help balance the budget he passed a budget agreement that made 133 billion in new taxes
  • This killed him politically as he had promised no new taxes

Bill Clinton: The First Baby-Boomer President

• Clinton reformed democratic policies to make them more appealing to voters
• he won clearly in televised debates
• Bush only halfheartedly campaigned for a second term
• Clinton won the presidency easily
• He quickly introduced many minority leaders into govenrment

A False Start for Reform

• Clinton overestimated his electoral mandate for liberal reform, making many costly (bad) decisions
  • One of his 1st initiatives after taking office was to end the ban on gays & lesbians in the armed services, causing a lot of controversy
    • settled for the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that secretly accepted gays & lesbians in armed services w/o officially acknowledging their presence in the military
  • Next, Clinton sought out (& failed) reform the nation's health-care system
    • Clinton appointed his wife/ prominent lawyer/ child-advocate Hillary Clinton as the director of a task force seeking to redesign the medical-service industry
    • October 1993: Hillary's task force unveiled its complicated plan & critics bashed the proposal immediately
      • it was pretty much D.O.A in Congress
  • Defecit-reduction bill in 199
    • By 1996, the federal deficit shrunk to its lowest level in more than a decade
  • Gun control:
    • "Brady Bill" passed by Congress in 1993 named after presidential aide James Brady(wounded/disabled by gun fire during the assassination attempt on Reagan in 1981)
    • July 1994: Clinton persuaded Congress to pass a $30 billion anticrime bill which included a ban on several types of guns
• An violent epidemic rocked American society in the 1990s
  • A radical Muslim group bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 killing 6 people
  • A bigger bombing of a federal office building in OK C, Oklahoma killed 168 in 1995 by the Branch Davidians
    • A standoff in Wako, Texas between federalist agents & the Branch Davidians in 1993 ending in the destruction of the sect's compound & deaths of many Branch Davidians
      • These showed the secretive underground of paramilitary private "militias" composed of alienated citizens fully armed & suspicious of all gov'ts
• Hillary Clinton:
  • As B. Clinton's main reform plan architect, H. Clinton took a lot of abuse
  • H. Clinton entered the White House as B. Clinton's full political partner sharing in his political spotlight like no other 1st lady before her
    • H. Clinton soon became more of a political liability & stepped out of the limelight

The Politics of Distrust

• Republicans had a good opportunity in 1994 to attack Clinton and his failed initiatives
  • led by Newt Gingrich
    • "Contract with America" = an all out assault on budget deficits and radical reductions in welfare programs
    • Democrats countered saying it was a "Contract on America"
  • all 1994 Republican congressional re-elections were won, even picked up 11 governors
  • owned both chambers of federal Congress for the first time in 40 years
• Republicans overplayed their mandate for conservative retrenchment
  • did not give out new revenues while imposing new obligations on state and local gov'ts
• Welfare Reform Bill passed
  • all able-bodied unemployed had to find work
  • anti-immigrant
• Republicans scared people away and Clinton was re-elected in 1996
  • won 379 electoral to 159 against Dole

Clinton Again

• When elected the democrats controlled neither house so he proposed few legislative goals
• He passed the Welfare Reform Bill of 1996
• Clinton pledged to mend affirmative action not end it
• When in California in 1996 affirmative action was prohibited minority enrollment went down greatly
• Clinton critisized this assault on affirmative action but did not try to stop them
• Clintons strongest feature was the economy which under him had the largest growth in history
• Clinton worked on a global free trade system and promoted the World Trade Organization
• Americans disliked this trade policy
• Another issue evolved during the 1996 campaign about campaign finance
  • Clintons campaign recieved money from various improper sources
  • Neither party really wanted to make it an issue because they both did it
• Two domestic issues stood out in Clintons second term
  • the fight against big tobacco
  • and the fight for gun control
• He worked to limit the tobacco companys advertisements to youths
• Clintons administration also tried to use lawsuits to gain the money back that they were wasting on smokers health
• Due to the many school shootings gun laws were tightened by clinton

Scandal and Impeachment

• Clinton had to be worried about his rep. because there were accusations of scandal at the start of his term
  • Whitewater Land Corporation- a real-estate business that failed, Clinton had made an investment
    • It was investigated
    • Vincent W. Foster, Jr. was the financial consel for Clinton, and he committed suicide
    • Clinton had loose ethics and a habit of "womanizing"
      • Shown in Primary Colors
    • Nothing was ever proved in the Whitewater investigation
  • 1998- Clinton accused of "sexual affair" with intern Monica Leewinsky
    • He lied about it under oath
    • Paula Jones was charging Clinton with sexual harassment (when he was Governor)
    • Case was allowed to go forward
  • Kenneth Star (prosecutor) had been on the Whitewater case, and was immpressed by the "lied under oath" thing
    • Starr had been watching Clinton like a hawk for a while, hoping he would do something wrong
    • Clinton (after 8 mohths) had to admit to an "inappropriate relationship"
    • Starr gave graphic sexual details annd included 11 posible impeachment accusations (all related to the Lewinsky Incident) to the House of Reps
  • House of Reps was led by Anti-Clinton republicans
    • They started the proces of impeachment
    • Decided on two things:
      • perjury before a grand jury
      • Obstruction of justice
  • Democrats said none of this was fair, but he Republicans were like "yeah, right, whatever"
• The people (apparently) didn't like the whole "sex with intern" thing, but still like Clinton
• Starr's reputation was a little tarnished
• In Jan and Feb of 1999, the impeachment procedding started
  • Senators heard arguments of both sides (Chief Justice William Rehnquist presiding)
  • On obstruction of justice charge, Blinton (that's Bill and Clinton combined) was found not guilty
  • Also found not guilty of perjury

Clinton's Legacy

• With the impeachment trial over Clinton spent what remained of his presidency seeking to secure a legacy for himself as an effective leader and moderate reformer.
• He designated major swaths of undeveloped land as protected wilderness and won public support for health-care improvements
• He took advantage of big federal budget surpluses to win congressional approval for hiring 100,000 more teachers and 50,000 more police officers/
• Budget surpluses brought out the differences between Republicans and Democrats.
• Beyond the stain of impeachment Clinton's legacy was bound to be a mixed one for his country and his party.
• When he came into office in 1992 he was determined to make economic growth his first priority and he surely succeeded.
• The country achieved nearly full employment by the decades end, pverty rates inched down, and median income reached new highs.
• From 1998 to 2000 the federal budgets resulted in surpluses rather than deficits
• As a brilliant communicator Clinton kept alive a vision of social justice and racial harmony
• As an executive he discouraged people from expecting the gov't to remedy all the nation's ills
• By setting such a low standard for his personal conduct he replenished the sad reservior of public cynicism about politics that Vietnam and Watergate had created a generation before.
• In the last days of his presidency Clinton negotiated a deal with the Special Prosecutor to win immunity from possible legal action over the Lewinsky scandal by agreeing to a fine and a five-year suspension of his law license.