The Breach : Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton

Product Description

The journalist who co-wrote the original article breaking the Monica Lewinsky scandal for the Washington Post reveals the complete story behind the headlines: a riveting, in-depth account of an event unique in American history -- the first impeachment of an elected president. "For all of the titillation about thongs and cigars, the story of the impeachment and trial of William Jefferson Clinton was not so much about sex as it was about power. It may have started with an unseemly rendezvous near the Oval Office, but it mushroomed into the Washington battle of a generation, ultimately dragging in all three branches of government.... "Clinton opened his second term vowing to bring the parties together, to become the 'repairer of the breach.' But the last half of the presidency demonstrated that the breach was wider than anyone had anticipated." -- from the Prologue With unprecedented access to all the players -- major and minor -- Washington Post reporter Peter Baker reconstructs the compelling drama that gripped the nation for six critical months: the impeachment and trial of William Jefferson Clinton. The Breach vividly depicts the mind-boggling political and legal events as they unfolded, a day-by-day and sometimes hour-by-hour account beginning August 17, 1998, the night of the president's grand-jury testimony and his disastrous speech to the nation, through the House impeachment hearings and the Senate trial, ending on February 12, 1999, the day of his acquittal. Using 350 original interviews, confidential investigation files, diaries, and tape recordings, Baker goes behind the scenes and packs the book with newsworthy revelations -- the infighting among the president's advisers, the pressure among Democrats to call for Clinton's resignation, the secret back-channel negotiations between the White House and Congress, a tour of the War Room set up by Tom DeLay to force Clinton out of office, the agonizing of various members of Congress, the anxiety of lawmakers who feared the exposure of their own sex lives, and Hillary Clinton's learning that her husband would admit his affair with Monica Lewinsky. The Breach is contemporary history at its best -- shocking, revealing, and consequential. It is a tale of how Washington became lost in "the breach" of its own partisan impulses. All of this, and much more, makes The Breach one of the most important and illuminating volumes of history and contemporary politics of our generation.

Online Review

In case you missed "our long national nightmare" the first time around, or have recovered from the stunning deluge of coverage and pundit-babble inflicted upon the nation, or if you're just hazy on some of the details, The Breach is for you. Peter Baker, a longtime reporter for the Washington Post, covered the White House from 1996 to1999. He has used his experience and access to write the ultimate Beltway book about the six-month saga of the impeachment and trial of President Clinton, from the unfortunate, verb-parsing grand jury testimony of August 1998 to the Senate acquittal in February 1999. The Breach is a refreshing departure from the daily onslaught of revelations, spin, and commentary that characterized the affair as it unfolded; it's a rigorously researched and extremely detailed account of what happened. Some of the information is new, even shocking, and often depressing. But mostly it's a reminder of how savage and surreal the whole thing was, with adulterers accusing adulterers and the fate of the Executive held to ransom. In a tale of rampant male ego, it is the old feminist saw "the personal is political" that perhaps best encapsulates the experience. Though The Breach is detailed, compiled from hundreds of interviews, investigation files, diaries, and recordings, it lacks that numbing quality the contemporary coverage had. This is inside baseball, written for C-SPAN geeks, Beltway bandits--wannabe or actual--and curious citizens alike. Perhaps the highest praise for such an endeavor is that even after all the hype, this book still manages to be a page-turner. --J. Riches