Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) believes it was a “mistake” to impeach former President Bill Clinton (D) over his affair with Monica Lewinsky in 1998.
Gingrich admitted that during an interview with the New York Post reporter Miranda Devine on her Pod Force One podcast Wednesday.
Devine asked him if it “was a mistake to impeach [Clinton] over the” scandal.
“I think it was a mistake, because the real problem wasn’t Lewinsky,” Gingrich said. “The real problem was he committed perjury in a case involving sexual harassment when he was governor. And perjury’s a felony.”
Gingrich was referring to the case with Paula Jones, who accused Clinton of propositioning her in a hotel room in 1991, exposing himself, and asking her to perform oral sex.
Jones sued Clinton in 1994 for sexual harassment; the case was later settled out of court in 1998.
Clinton denied the allegations.
Gingrich said he knew the impeachment of Clinton over Lewinsky was a bad move during the summer of 1998, when he was eating with his two daughters at a cafe.
“If our friends lose money on their 401K because of some stupid intern, we are going to be mad at you, because frankly it ain’t a big enough deal for us to lose a lot of money,” they told Gingrich.
“I realized at that point I had completely misunderstood how the culture was evolving,” Gingrich said.
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“Wow,” Devine responded, adding, “and I guess also it meant that the Democrats had a talking point, which was you impeached our president over a triviality, therefore anything goes in the future.”
Gingrich said he didn’t really agree with that, considering the Democrats didn’t try to impeach George W. Bush (R) when he was in office.
He said Clinton’s impeachment backfired and led to him leaving office “at the high point of his popularity.”
A poll in late 2000 found Clinton had a 67% approval rating.
“You know that you didn’t necessarily want your daughter to go out on a date with him, but that didn’t matter,” Gingrich added.
