Monica Lewinsky believes former President Bill Clinton should’ve resigned from the Oval Office as Congress voted to impeach him for lying about his affair with the then-22-year-old.
“I think that the right way to handle a situation like that would’ve been to probably say it was nobody’s business and to resign,” Lewinsky told host “Call Her Daddy” host Alex Cooper in the episode released Tuesday night.
Lewinsky, who interned in the West Wing between 1995 and 1997, suggested Clinton should’ve been truthful about the pair’s alleged sexual relationship as a solution to finish out his second term amid the scandal.
“Or to find a way to stay in office that was not lying and not throwing a young person who is just starting out in the world under the bus,” Lewinsky, 51, added.
The remarks are a first of its kind for the activist who revealed she has never been asked the question.
Lewinsky felt she was being too lenient with the former president and the magnitude of what a resignation could’ve meant.
“At the same time I hear myself say that and it’s like ‘Ok but we’re also talking about the most powerful office in the world,” she said. “I don’t want to be naive either.”
Lewinsky was a key figure that led to the impeachment of Clinton in 1998.
A report for the House Judiciary Committee by Independent Counselor Ken Starr found Clinton and Lewinsky engaged in a sexual relationship in the Oval Office before the president lied about it while under oath in front of a federal grand jury.
The inquiry came out of a 1994 sexual harassment lawsuit from Pamela Jones, a former Arkansas state employee, who claimed Clinton propositioned her and exposed himself inside a hotel room in Little Rock while he was governor in 1991.
During the court case for Jones’ allegations, Starr found Clinton had lied under oath when discussing his relationship with Lewinsky which was found to be grounds for impeachment.
The former president was brought up on charges of lying under oath and obstruction of justice.
The Senate ultimately voted to acquit Clinton in February 1999.
Clinton said he never thought about resigning from office.
“Well, I knew it wouldn’t succeed,” Clinton told CBS News in May 2018. “It wasn’t a pleasant experience. But it was a fight that I was glad to undertake after the elections, when the people had solidly told, by two-thirds or more, the Republicans to stop it. They knew there was nothing impeachable. And so, we fought it to the end. And I’m glad.”
After leaving office, Clinton admitted why he engaged with Lewinsky in the torrid love affair.
“I did something for the worst possible reason – just because I could,” Clinton told CBS in 2004. “I think that’s just about the most morally indefensible reason anybody could have for doing something – when you do it because you could.
“And I thought about it a lot, and there are a lot of more sophisticated explanations, more complicated psychological explanations, but none of them are an excuse. Only a fool does not look to explain his mistakes.”
Lewinsky said she lost her future after the scandal but was proud she held onto her “true self.”
In the years following the scandal, several people reached out to Lewinsky and offered apologies for not standing up for her.
“I’ve had a handful of people who were involved at the time that I’ve run into in different ways who acknowledge that they have made different choices,” Lewinsky said. “None of the people who were above the fold names involved in the investigation. I’m grateful that I’m at a place where I don’t need it anymore.”
