In recounting the events of the events surrounding President Bill Clinton’s impeachment and the Clinton scandal, Impeachment: American Crime Story stays close to the true story while changing a few details for dramatic effect along the way. This is the third season of American Crime Story, and Impeachment connects with O.J. Simpson's and Gianni Versace's murder stories. Each American Crime Story installment focuses on important concepts like racism, homophobia, or sexism at the core of recent real-life, highly publicized American events, typically at the intersection of media treatment and public response to the associated controversies.
Occurring a little over two decades ago, the impeachment trial and Clinton scandal are still quite fresh in the American cultural conscience. In Ryan Murphy’s television series, the events are depicted from a new perspective, focusing more on the point of view of the women who were key players in the lead-up to the impeachment rather than the men. Primarily following Monica Lewinsky, Paula Jones, and Linda Tripp, Impeachment: American Crime Story offers a deep-dive on one of the most significant events in American history from the last few decades, culminating in the first impeachment of an American President in over a century.
With Monica Lewinsky serving as a producer on the series, American Crime Story is able to more accurately depict many of the more personal events and reactions that may not have come out in the various depositions or testimonies that have taken place since. At the same time, it’s a television series—not a documentary. While telling the real-life story of the Clinton impeachment, sexual harassment lawsuits, and scandal surrounding the sexual relationship with Lewinsky, American Crime Story does still fictionalize some of the events for dramatic effect. Here’s a guide to what Impeachment gets right about the events and what the season changes or omits.
Impeachment Episode 1, “Exiles”
The opening scene of Impeachment shows Monica Lewinsky (Beanie Feldstein) going to meet Linda Tripp (Sarah Paulson) at a food court in the mall for lunch. As Monica waits to meet her coworker, she sees Linda coming down the escalator, signaling two FBI agents who follow close behind. Once they reach Monica, they inform her they need her to come with them to answer some questions. The way this particular situation is portrayed in the comparable American Crime Story is actually quite true to life in how both Lewinsky and Tripp explained it in their statements. Monica even explicitly stated that the two agents flashed their badges at her before mentioning she was under investigation for the Paula Jones case. She’s then brought to a hotel room at the Ritz Carlton, where she was infamously interrogated by the FBI and independent counsel with Linda in the next room. All the events depicted thus far are accurate, showing the real moment Monica’s world came crashing down.
Impeachment episode 1 then skips back to 1993, detailing the last few key events leading up to Linda Tripp’s transfer from the White House counsel’s office to the Pentagon—which was considered a demotion despite the higher pay. Without going into the details, the now-released American Crime Stories episode 1, “Exiles,” shows the circumstances of Vincent Foster’s death by suicide, with all depicted events coming from official statements and testimonies by those present. Linda Tripp, who worked under Foster, was, as far as it's known, the last person to see him alive. As depicted in Impeachment, she brought him his lunch - Coke, fries, cheeseburger, and a pack of M&Ms - and he left the office, offering her the rest of his M&Ms before leaving and saying he'd be back. After Foster’s death, Tripp sees White House employees taking boxes of files relating to Whitewater from Foster’s office, which really did occur, though several others witnessed the event.
The drama of Impeachment’s premiere episode then switches to Paula and Steve Jones in 1994, who are living in Venice Beach, CA. Steve becomes angry reading an article in The American Spectator, a right-wing magazine, that notes Paula had a sexual encounter with President Bill Clinton in 1991. Impeachment’s presentation of Jones’ accusation of sexual harassment comes directly from Jones’ statements in her deposition, including her seeking $700,000 and an apology from the President. Paula then speaks at a conservative conference to publicize her lawsuit, where the men chastise her for even going into the room. The speech can still be seen online, and the dialogue, including inappropriate jests by the reporters, parallels that from American Crime Story.
American Crime Story then follows another notable harassment controversy that will reappear as evidence in the lead-up to his impeachment. Linda Tripp and a volunteer aide, donor’s wife, Kathleen Willey (Elizabeth Reaser), discuss how Willey wants a full-time job in the department. Linda then encourages her to talk to Bill Clinton, and by the time she comes back, she explains he kissed her in his office until another aide tried to come through the door. American Crime Story’s depiction of this scene is up for debate about how completely accurate it is, with both women's real-life accounts being different. Linda Tripp explained that Willey was a bit excited about the encounter when asking for her lipstick, whereas Willey claims in real life that Clinton groped her and the incident was a nonconsensual assault, leaving her shaken as she meets Tripp afterward - as shown in the series. The White House counsel then sees a change in personnel the following March, where Tripp is transferred to the Pentagon while Willey is hired in Tripp’s old White House position, albeit in an “entry-level” role. Regarding Impeachment's divisively reviewed portrayal, it doesn’t appear that Tripp or Willey ever actually claimed an aide interrupted the assault, and while Willey did end up taking a role in the White House counsel’s office for a few months, it wasn’t Linda’s old position—Linda was replaced by the new deputy White House counsel’s own secretary.
When Monica and Linda finally meet as coworkers at the Department of Defense in 1996, the ways in which Linda catches on to her having a sexual relationship with an important figure are a bit different in real life than shown in Impeachment. When they first become friendly in American Crime Story, Linda notices that Monica has a calendar counting down the days until the election, which leads her to surmise that her mystery boyfriend is an important White House official. While the real-life Monica Lewinsky, who is a producer on Impeachment, did admit that she had such a calendar in real life, it isn’t clear if Tripp ever saw it or not. According to The Washington Post, Tripp and Lewinsky first sparked a coworker friendship when Lewinsky walked by her desk and noticed Tripp had pictures of Clinton up on her wall. Tripp noticed that Lewinsky was a big Clinton supporter, though hadn’t connected that he was the man she was in a relationship with until several months later. While Impeachment episode 1 is mostly used as background to set up what’s in store with the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, it’s quite accurate in depicting what really happened, which isn’t too difficult when all of the testimony from the real-life case is easily accessible online.
Impeachment Episode 2, "The President Kissed Me"
Much of the drama from “The President Kissed Me” comes from what Monica Lewinsky herself has written about and declared, as she primarily recounts how her relationship with President Clinton really began. Yes, Lewinsky was only 21 years old and a White House intern at the time when they officially met in his office, only a few days into the government shutdown. After Clinton vetoed cuts to Medicare, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich shut down the government for a total of fives days, which meant the interns were sent to the East Wing of the White House to answer phone calls. Just as how American Crime Story dramatically tells it, Clinton motioned Lewinsky into the empty office of George Stephanopoulos, where their flirtation truly began. Per Lewinsky herself in The Clinton Affair documentary, Clinton then invited her into his own private office.
Once American Crime Story's episodes return to the 1996 timeline with Monica working in the Pentagon, she relents how she has had no physical contact with the President and barely any phone calls during his election campaign. This is true: The Starr Report detailed that they had no private meetings from April to December 1996, during which most of their relationship involved infrequent telephone calls – nearly all while Hillary Clinton was away. Additionally, Monica mentions that six days before the election, she and Bill Clinton hadn’t spoken for 22 days, which is false since The Starr Report explains they had a sexual phone conversation on October 22, only two weeks before the election. Monica also reveals the President had been faxing his daily campaign schedule to her, though The Starr Report nor any major outlets confirmed this piece of contact in real life. It’s possible this happened, and Impeachment producer Monica Lewinsky never publicly mentioned it, or it’s just one part of their distant relationship that American Crime Story fabricated.
Another aspect of the Clinton scandal that American Crime Story gets right is that their physical meetings were more than often on the weekends when most of the staff was gone. In the beginning, it was flirtations where they would just look at each other without actually saying anything. Once they had begun seeing each other, Clinton would find ways to bring Lewinsky alone to his office, such as how the Impeachment episode shows her bringing a pizza, which was a real occurrence. Even the clip where Monica shows off a pink thong to President Clinton walking by notably happened in real life, showing just how intense and obvious the flirtation was within the workplace.
Episode 2 of Impeachment also details how Clinton's scandal was physically revamped after the election, such as how Lewinsky would bring him gifts, including a frog toy that Lewinsky actually did give him in real life. It’s not clear whether Clinton actually did tell Lewinsky she was like The Face from Mike Hammer, but it definitely sounds like something that Ryan Murphy’s team would have plugged in for an analogy. While it may seem like something completely fabricated for the show, in real life, Linda Tripp did actually convince Lewinsky to make an Excel spreadsheet of all her interactions with the President, which was quite convenient for the office of Independent Counsel.
One of the final moments of Impeachment episode 2 is extremely important for what’s to come in the series - and real-life - with the evidence used during Clinton’s impeachment trial. In order to finally get Monica alone, Clinton invites her to his radio address about keeping drugs out of neighborhoods. In one of their final meetings, before everything went public, Clinton showered Monica with notable gifts, including a Walt Whitman book and a hatpin, both of which were revealed in his later trial. This January meeting was also the time where the infamous blue dress was stained, which became an unfortunate staple in popular culture for sex scandals. It seems American Crime Story’s writers went through every article and report possible, being extremely accurate in their recollection of the beginning of the Clinton affair.
Impeachment Episode 3, “Not To Be Believed”
Picking up the momentum of Clinton’s frustrations about getting caught with Monica as more sexual harassment lawsuits and Ken Starr’s Whitewater investigation creep up, episode 3 of Impeachment tackles several behind-the-scenes details from the lead up to the 1998 presidential impeachment. One character and real-life figure in the impeachment focused on in American Crime Story’s episode is Matt Drudge, founder of the gossip blog and news website Drudge Report. The episode shows Drudge working at the CBS gift shop in 1995, a job he actually took in real life, which allowed him access to many secrets of the business. Impeachment also shows Drudge digging through CBS’s trash to get a lead on Jerry Seinfeld, which really was one of his main tactics for finding gossip and secrets from the company. As shown in the episode, Matt Drudge was also responsible for leading the unverified report on Kathleen Wiley before Mike Isikoff, which jumpstarted his rise to media fame.
While notably being absent for the majority of American Crime Story’s past episodes, First Lady Hillary Clinton is mentioned several times as a reason why Clinton wouldn't settle the Paula Jones case. At one point, Bill says he can’t put anything more on Hillary because Independent Counsel is already trying to indict her for 12-year-old billing records. This is true; the investigators on the Whitewater situation were trying to go after Hillary for billing records during her time at Rose Law Firm, which provided legal counsel for the Whitewater Development that went missing after Vince Foster’s death. From 1995-1996, Hillary was subpoenaed and frequently questioned about said records. Bill noting she would never let him settle the Jones case is also likely accurate, as future presidential nominee Hillary Clinton notably stated that the accusations against him were preposterous, claiming they were part of a vast right-wing conspiracy. While Clinton’s right-wing opposers were certainly conspiring against him, specifically using the allegations as a tool to progress his removal, the accusations aren’t any less valid.
The American Crime Story episode also deals with Linda Tripp’s cooperation with reporter Mike Isikoff, who was originally seeking her out for details on Kathleen Willey’s sexual assault allegation against Bill Clinton. Linda eventually agrees to meet with her and tell her story, which she says happened very differently from Willey’s claims. When meeting with Isikoff, Linda gets them to rendezvous in a more anonymous setting: her hairdresser’s. It seems like an odd place for a Pentagon employee to reveal deep secrets about the president having an affair with Impeachment's Monica Lewinsky and refute Willey’s assault claims, but it surprisingly wasn’t fabricated for the show. It was reported (via The Washington Post) that Tripp actually did ask Isikoff to meet her at the hair salon, with Tripp claiming one of TWP’s reporters truly walked up and asked if she was Kathleen Willey.
Impeachment’s episode closes with the news that Bill Clinton decided to settle with Paula Jones, which her lawyers joyfully relate. Jones’ team says Clinton will give her $700,000 in the settlement, an amount which she is baffled by. The win is undermined by Paula’s husband, Steve Jones, who says it isn’t actually a feat because the money isn’t his; his real punishment would be to publicly apologize. The Joneses then decide they won’t accept the money, wanting to push further until President Clinton formally apologizes to Paula - which means going to trial.
In reality, Clinton did finally offer a $700,000 settlement to Jones in June 1997, though with no apology or admission of guilt. As included in American Crime Story’s portrayal, Steve and Paula rejected the settlement, stating that they needed an apology for the suit to be dropped. While her lawyers wanted her to take the money, Steve Jones and Susan Carpenter-McMillan instructed her to keep fighting until she got an apology, which would be far more damaging to the president.
Impeachment Episode 4, “The Telephone Hour”
Impeachment episode 4 kicks off in August 1997, showing Monica meet with Marsha Scott about getting a national security position at the White House. This actually happened, with Scott saying she wasn’t instructed to get Lewinsky a job by the president, whereas Bill Clinton and Betty later testified that Scott and Betty were both directed to get her a job. The American Crime Story drama then switches over to Linda Tripp at the Pentagon finding a document on her desk titled “Bill and Hillary’s Body Count,” which gives a list of names, including White House counsel Vince Foster, who supposedly met “violet and quiet ends.” It’s not confirmed whether Linda actually did receive this letter in real life or not, but it seems Impeachment used it to show the far-right was trying to get at Linda to help their cause. Linda Tripp claiming she had a friend named Kate who worked in the NSC and said Monica would never work at the White House was also true, having been testified by Lewinsky in The Starr Report.
During Monica’s job search, she asks Bill Clinton to help set up a meeting with his friend Vernon Jordan, who notably was Clinton’s “fixer” and would be the best person to get her job. They meet in his office, where he says he’ll set her up with an interview with Revlon in New York City. This meeting really occurred as shown, with Revlon actually offering a corporate position to Lewinsky before the news of the Clinton affair and impending impeachment made headlines. As with most of the unbelievable parts of American Crime Story’s season, the gross moment where Vernon Jordan slaps Lewinsky’s rear as she exits the meeting is sadly true. When recounting the meeting in The Starr Report (via Tampa Bay Times), Lewinsky said it was a “playful slap,” like a “Get out of here, kid” parting, but really it just goes to show the commonality of sexual harassment by men in high positions.
The real-life Monica Lewinsky was also offered a job with the United Nations that she turned down, though she claimed in her rejection that it was because she wanted to work in the private sector. FX's American Crime Story also shows Monica getting the UN job offer in a call directly from Bill Richardson, which is what Lewinsky actually testified, but in reality, the call was made by Richardson’s assistant Mona Sutphen. According to The Washington Post, she ended up sending Bill Clinton a “wish list” of the PR firms she wanted to work for in New York City, feeling entitled that he finds her job since he was the reason she was transferred out of the White House.
The infamous blue dress being found in Monica’s closet while Linda Tripp was over actually occurred in real life. As Impeachment’s episode shows, Monica and Linda were digging through the former’s closet for an outfit when Linda spotted a blue dress on the floor. Monica says it’s dirty, having been worn the last time she was intimate with Bill Clinton - an encounter that movies joked about incessantly afterward. This isn’t exactly how the blue dress discovery happened in real life; Monica actually did have the dress hanging up in her closet and had no idea there was a stain. It wasn’t until she was picking out a dress to wear for Thanksgiving that she took it out of her closet to show to Tripp and noticed the stain. Monica later said that Linda told her to put it in a “safety deposit box because it could be evidence one day,” which American Crime Story does accurately include.
The other part of the Ryan Murphy TV show's blue dress scene that doesn’t line up with the real-life timeline is Monica claiming she wore it the last time she was with Clinton. The blue dress was worn on their February 1997 sexual encounter, whereas their final intimate meeting was a month later in March 1997. As will surely be shown in Impeachment, the blue dress has become a notable object in pop culture due to its being used as evidence in the case because it had an unwashed stain of the president’s semen.
Impeachment Episode 5, "Do You Hear What I Hear?"
The Washington D.C. gossip begins quickly in the Clinton impeachment season's episode 5, with Monica spending a 1997 December night in a bar where she meets a young Jake Tapper. The two end up moving onto a real date at a restaurant, where American Crime Story gives an up-and-coming feature of Jake Tapper, who is now the Lead Washington Ancor for CNN and a notable journalist. With Tapper still being a significant political figure nearly 25 years later, it seems odd that most people don’t know he went on a date with Monica Lewinsky. The date depicted in Impeachment did happen in real life, with Tapper even writing a Washington City Paper article titled I Dated Monica Lewinsky a few weeks after she became a household name. The Ryan Murphy TV show character's article wasn’t damaging to her like other men from her past as Tapper was trying to say she was like every girl and one he wouldn’t mind bringing home to his mother, but it certainly added to the headache of a media frenzy Lewinsky was subject to at the time.
Just when it seems like Jake Tapper was the biggest 25-years-younger modern political figure to show up in Impeachment’s episode, Brett Kavanaugh appears. Episode 5 of American Crime Story season 3 finally gives its look into the independent counsel team at the office of Ken Starr, and who else should be the youngest counselor but the controversial Supreme Court associate justice appointed by sitting-president Donald Trump in 2018? Kavanaugh was truly an Associate Counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel that investigated Bill Clinton at the time of his scandal and lead-up to his impeachment. During this time, he received much criticism for continuing to open up the investigation into the death of Vince Foster, which was still repeatedly ruled a suicide.
Even though Kavanaugh is only in Impeachment’s episode for a few seconds with an off-hand comment that confirms it’s him, it’s not surprising whatsoever that Ryan Murphy chose to include him. Kavanaugh’s appointment trial occurs shortly after the Me Too movement, where women were finally gaining the support to come forth about sexual harassment and assault, especially about the men in power who made coming forth even more difficult. Christine Blasey Ford notably came forward about Kavanaugh sexually assaulting her while they were in high school, where he faced no consequences and, like the women in Ryan Murphy's series, made Ford into a woman that wasn’t to be believed. In the end, Kavanaugh was confirmed by the Senate, and a man with one of the most notable sexual assault allegations in recent history remains on the Supreme Court.
The drama of Linda Tripp releasing the tapes of her phone conversations with Monica is heightened in this episode, with said tapes finally reaching the Office of Independent Counsel Ken Starr. Linda first gave the tapes to her lawyer where she was sure her plan was working, only to be quickly disappointed when he informs her that taping calls from her home without the consent of Monica is a felony in the state of Maryland. Had she recorded the calls in Washington, D.C., she would have been in the clear, but Maryland requires two-party consent for recording calls, meaning the conniving Sarah Paulson character could go to jail if the tapes are released. After much panic, Linda calls Lucy, who tells her to directly call the Office of Independent Counsel, who is already investigating Clinton and will give her immunity from prosecution if she gives them the tapes. The next day, the OIC wires Tripp as she meets Lewinsky for lunch, where the counsel gets the damning information they need to prove both Lewinsky and Clinton committed perjury.
This generally happened in the way American Crime Story depicts it, with a few details adjusted for more intense drama. Linda Tripp did truly go into her lawyer’s office about the tapes on January 9, 1998, where he says she can be prosecuted. The Fall 2021 show Impeachment later shows Lucy telling Linda to call Starr’s office, with The New York Times reporting that Goldberg really was the connection between Tripp and the OIC. While it seems unlikely that multiple prosecutors would have rushed to Tripp’s Maryland home in the middle of the night on January 12, they actually did. Four prosecutors were at her house between the hours of 11:15 p.m. and 1:15 a.m. (via Los Angeles Times) as they prepped her to be wired for the meeting with Monica Lewinsky the following afternoon. The prosecutors truly did rent a room upstairs where they could clearly hear Linda Tripp’s conversation with Monica Lewinsky, having a record of perjury that would give them evidence to move forward with their Bill Clinton investigation pictured in American Crime Story.
Impeachment Episode 6, "Man Handled"
Episode 6 of Impeachment covers one of the most important days of the Clive Owen character's impeachment outside of the actual trial. Impeachment spends the episode detailing the 11 hours in which Monica was held in the Ritz Carlton and questioned by FBI agents and the Office of Independent Counsel, bringing all of the drama from the season so far together. It begins with what was shown in the opening scene of American Crime Story season 3, but this time from Linda’s perspective. Linda comes down the escalator with agents who ask Monica to come with them to answer questions, suggesting she’s in trouble with the affidavit she signed for the Paula Jones case. All of this happened in real life as shown in the episode, with all of the OIC, Monica, and Linda having testimonies that matched up to the drama.
The code name for the ambush on Lewinsky given by Mike Emmick (played by Fargo series actor Colin Hanks) and Jackie Bennett isn’t a joke for the series, the unofficial name was “Operation Prom Night” because they’re bringing a girl to a hotel room for what they intended to be a half an hour. According to NPR, Ken Starr explained that the first hour of the agents speaking with Monica was full of her screaming, crying, and complaining about Linda betraying her. American Crime Story briefly shows this, but it definitely details how resistant Monica was to giving into them, fearful she was of the criminal consequences, and blindsided she felt about Linda’s treachery. It’s also true that Ken Starr’s team wanted to coach her and make her call Betty, Vernon Jordan, and Bill Clinton himself to catch them lying. Ken Starr, who wasn’t present, denies that his agents pressured real-life Monica Lewinsky into becoming an agent for them like Linda or used tactics to lower her will as seen in American Crime Story, but according to LA Times, Starr’s deputies essentially confirmed that they did in sworn affidavits.
One aspect of those 11 hours that has been up for debate, specifically whether or not OIC was refusing to allow Monica to call her lawyer Frank Carter or her mother. Ken Starr’s office maintains that they always told her she was free to leave and free to call whoever because she was not under arrest, but to a 24-year-old girl who is being accused of perjury for the president, they likely weren’t as upfront or easygoing about it as they claimed. Monica continually asked to call her mother (played by Netflix's Hollywood's Mira Sorvino) and lawyer Frank Carter both in real life and in Impeachment, and wasn’t able to call the latter until hours later at nearly 6 p.m. According to testimonies, the OIC was advising her to not call Carter, to look at different lawyers, or simply encouraging her to cooperate and thus not call when she asked.
When considering the real-life circumstances of “Operation Prom Night” and the fact that the prosecution hardly had a case at the time of the ambush, the OIC pressuring her into not calling her lawyer seems more likely. The entire reason for the ambush and the prosecution’s leverage was that Monica had lied on the signed affidavit, which she knew that she did, but didn’t have to admit then. In reality, at the time of the ambush, the affidavit for Clinton's testimony hadn’t been filed yet - it was still in the process of being delivered. Had Monica been able to call Frank Carter earlier in the day, he would have realized that the affidavit wasn’t official yet and still had time to be amended before Clinton’s testimonial the following day. If this had happened, the prosecution’s entire case on Monica Lewinsky would have been moot. While Impeachment left this part out, Monica testified that she had tried to warn Betty about the FBI and OIC’s investigation, apparently leaving a message for her saying “Hoover, Hoover” in reference to J. Edgar Hoover, cryptically implying feds.
American Crime Story’s episode then reintroduces Monica’s mother Marcia Lewis, who gets a far more heartbreaking and powerful role in the season’s drama. Monica truly refused to answer questions until her mom arrived as show creator Ryan Murphy depicts, though in real life had asked if she could even be escorted by the agents to her mother in New York. Her mom hopped on a train and arrived in D.C. several hours later, helping Monica navigate the prosecutors’ questions. Impeachment also shows Monica’s father becoming involved on this day, where he recruits his friend Bill Ginsburg to act as Monica’s lawyer. It’s not confirmed whether Bill Ginsburg actually called Mike Emmick by the expletives he does in American Crime Story, but he definitely spoke with him on the phone that day when he declared himself Monica’s lawyer and got Monica out of the hotel room at 12:30 a.m.
The aspect of Impeachment’s episode that seems the most unbelievable is Monica’s journey around the Pentagon City Mall with Emmick and an FBI agent, but this actually happened. The 2021 TV show follows Monica briefly taking him into Crate & Barrel where she discusses the products and makes jokes. The real-life Monica Lewinsky actually discussed this moment with New York Times, saying she felt this would have been her opportunity to signal to an outside person for help. To top off the entirely true ridiculousness of the notable day, Beanie Feldstein’s character, Emmick, and an agent eat dinner at Mozzarella’s American Grill where she paid for her own portion of the dinner. Impeachment’s episode even accurately pins the events down to the line where Jackie Bennett berates Monica by saying, “You’re 24. You’re smart. You’re old enough. You don’t need to call mommy,” which was taken verbatim from Monica’s testimony (via The Washington Post). The Impeachment episode also shows Sarah Paulson’s character's interrogation next door, in which was interviewed by Steve Binhak for several hours, though she was able to leave 8 hours before Lewinsky at 4 p.m. What the episode didn’t show was that later that evening, Linda secretly went to prep Paula Jones’ lawyers for what was going to be on the tapes she gave to the OIC.
Impeachment Episode 7, "The Assassination Of Monica Lewinsky"
The news of Bill Clinton’s sexual relationship with Lewinsky finally becomes subject to a media frenzy in Impeachment episode 7. Following Monica’s 11-hour hold-up at the Ritz Carlton, American Crime Story dives into Bill Clinton’s deposition for the Paula Jones lawsuit. Paula Jones’ lawyers claim that, under the Violence Against Women Act’s definition of sexual relations, Bill made sexual advances to Paula, but he denies he did anything she accuses him of. He then clearly lies by twisting the situation with Monica Lewinsky, whose jail time possibilities were just threatened, suggesting she may have brought a few things to his office but doesn’t recall ever being alone with her. Bill says he never had a sexual relationship with Monica, but she did give him gifts like ties. According to Bill Clinton’s testimony transcript, Jones’ lawyers really did begin the deposition by stating a definition of sexual relations and noted that Clinton had signed it into law a few years earlier, though they referenced it as “Rule 413” in real life. Under the law, a person knowingly engages in sexual relations if they contact certain areas of the body for gratification, contact one’s body with another’s genitals, or make contact between certain areas of another’s body. This suggests that Clinton did have sexual relations with Lewinsky, but not Paula Jones under the law.
Impeachment then shows the media perspective of the Clinton sex scandal, revealing that Linda Tripp’s reporter contact Mike Isikoff (played by On Becoming A God In Central Florida actor Danny Jacobs) had his story on the scandal pulled by Newsweek editors. Isikoff’s editor worries that Monica is lying and the tapes don’t reveal enough, while also stating that “sometimes it’s not worth being first” - a mindset that would clearly go extinct in the age of mass internet usage. Because Isikoff’s article is put on hold, gossip reporter Matt Drudge breaks the story online first. According to Drudge and Isikoff's (separate) 1998 statements, Impeachment's portrayal is largely accurate. Matt Drudge claimed on television (via The Village Voice) that Newsweek held Isikoff’s article because the editors worried that people “weren’t ready to hear the story” and Ken Starr’s Office of Independent Counsel needed more time to build a solid case, though Drudge offered no evidence for his assumption. Though not particularly shown in American Crime Story's political season, the decision to delay the article was, in reality, partly due to Newsweek’s worry that only the sketchiest facts from the questionably intentioned Linda Tripp were used for the story.
Bill Clinton is also seen coaching his secretary Betty Currie ahead of her possible questioning about Monica. According to the Starr Report, Currie testified that, just as Impeachment shows, Clinton called her into the White House and asked her leading questions phrased in a way that suggested he wanted her to lie. Currie specifically remembers him saying, “You were always there when she was there, right? We were never really alone,” which is what Clive Owen’s Clinton says in their American Crime Story meeting. She recalls them being phrased as statements to which Clinton wanted to hear Betty (falsely) “indicate [her] agreement.”
While Linda believed the public would praise her as a hero, she becomes the subject to cruel jokes. At home, Linda watches a Saturday Night Live parody skit in which John Goodman (insultingly) impersonates her while Molly Shannon plays Monica. This is a real skit, and it wasn’t the only one. The real-life Tripp at first found them humorous, then realized the skits’ cruelty, especially detesting how it harmed her teenage children’s perception of her (via CNN). In American Crime Story, Linda then discusses being bullied as a teenager, calling back to an earlier remark about how kids used to call her “Gus.” Tripp finally explains that popular kids teased her by calling her “Gus” after Gus Johnson, the notably large male NBA player, which clearly affected her self-confidence both in the show and in real life (via The Washington Post).
The Impeachment episode also features one of the most notable real-life events and phrases of the past 30 years uttered by Bill Clinton at a press conference, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” Additionally, the birth of another famous media phrase came out of Impeachment episode 7’s events, “the Full Ginsburg.” The phrase is now commonly used when a figure appears on all five major U.S. Sunday morning talk shows in one day, and is derived from Monica’s lawyer Bill Ginsburg (played by Wandavision recurring actor Fred Melamed) being the first person to make such rounds during the initial media frenzy. Rounding out the real-life media portrayals, American Crime Story shows Andy Bleiler, who Monica’s mom rightfully says took advantage of her as a teenager, making a press release on live television where he paints Monica in an even worse light, with the series recreating it exactly as broadcasted in 1998.
Impeachment Episode 8, "Stand By Your Man"
The truth comes out in episode 8 of Impeachment, with Ken Starr turning up the heat to fully intimidate Monica into cooperating while the Clintons attack her through the media. “Stand By Your Man” kicks off the real drama with Hillary Clinton (The Sopranos’ Edie Falco) making an appearance on The Today Show with Matt Lauer. Hillary is inevitably questioned about her husband’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky and the Ken Starr investigation, to which she cleverly responds by describing it as a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” This interview really happened on The Today Show in 1998, with Hillary Clinton responding in the exact same manner and declaring Ken Starr’s investigation a farce because right-wingers had been desperately trying to get him out of office since he first ran for president. As Impeachment has depicted, her statements about conservatives seeking out any crime to accuse Bill Clinton of aren’t entirely wrong - what was incorrect (in real-life) was Hillary Clinton saying the accusations about the relationship were false.
American Crime Story’s season 3 episode also details Monica switching up her legal counsel. Episode 7 left off with Ken Starr denying immunity because of how much he detested Bill Ginsburg, so he turns up the heat by truly threatening to arrest Monica. His office has Monica brought into a federal building to give a handwriting sample and fingerprints all to intimidate her into dumping Ginsburg. His plan works and she fires Ginsburg to hire new counsel, leading Starr to finally grant Monica immunity. Before Monica meets with Starr’s office, she also dons a hat, sunglasses, and a blonde wig as her public disguise.
The disguise 2019's Booksmart actress Beanie Feldstein wears in Impeachment mimics the get-up Monica was continually described to be wearing in public during the media frenzy, specifically ahead of her meeting for immunity with Ken Starr’s office (via The Washington Post). Monica also truly was sent by Starr’s office to give handwriting and fingerprints (per AP News) in a Los Angeles federal building, accompanied by her father who she was staying with at the time. Just as Ken Starr and Mike Emmick imply in their meeting beforehand, sending Monica to do this was clearly their way of sending a message in real life. Starr would have already had access to her fingerprints and handwriting from her time at the U.S. White House and Pentagon, which is how Monica and her team knew he would keep going further had she not fired Ginsburg.
Surprisingly, Monica is hardly featured in Impeachment episode 8. Instead, the installment focuses on Bill finally revealing the truth to both Hillary Clinton and the American public. Once Bill tells Hillary that he actually did have a relationship with Monica, all hell breaks loose for the family and Hillary will hardly speak to him. The Clintons then head on a tense vacation to Martha’s Vineyard with Vernon Jordan and his wife to celebrate Bill’s 52nd birthday. Both Vernon Jordan (played by Quantico seasons 2 and 3 actor Blair Underwood) and the Clintons were notable Martha’s Vineyard vacationers in real life, so it’s not surprising that the two families did spend time together for a weekend away in August 1998 amidst the testimonies and legal actions. Bill Clinton typically received a well-attended bash for his birthdays, but the upsetting timing of his 52nd birthday led to a private affair with just the Clintons and Jordans on the island (via NYT).
While the drama surrounding the upcoming impeachment is ramping up, Bill Clinton also has other presidential matters of international importance to deal with. Amidst his cold shoulder from Hillary Clinton, the Impeachment character of Lisey's Story actor Clive Owen is confronted with bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa led by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. This was absolutely all happening at the same time in August 1998, with the Tanzania and Kenya bombings occurring on August 7. The FBI linked the attacks to al Qaeda and Clinton was advised to airstrike camps in which al Qaeda members were confirmed and bin Laden may have been (via National Archives). As history can clearly tell, Impeachment showing that Clinton wasn’t successful in taking out Bin Laden was absolutely true since he wasn’t killed until under the President Obama administration in 2011. Aside from Clinton’s personal affairs and the 1996 election, this is the first major political event under his presidential duties that American Crime Story has shown.
Impeachment Episode 9, “The Grand Jury”
Picking up from the episode that finally gave Hillary Clinton’s side of the story, Impeachment episode 9, “The Grand Jury,” kicks off with Monica giving her testimony before the jury. Independent associate counsel Mike Emmick appears with a new lawyer Karin Immergut, whom – in a sexist manner – he implies was only brought in because Starr believed it would make them look better. Immergut (played by The Office’s Cathy actress Lindsey Broad) immediately asks Monica to recount her sexual relationship with President Clinton, of which she reluctantly agrees to provide details. Monica then reveals she lied because she didn’t believe her sexual relationship was anyone else’s business, and the president never asked her to commit perjury. Very quickly, the questioning seems to be like a gossip interview after a big breakup - though, so did the entire event - with the jurors wondering whether she still loves him, why she kept the dress, or if her motivation was to have another affair with a married man. These are all valid questions under the circumstances, but seem to be less charged with motivations of proving perjury than expected for one of the most important American trials in history. Monica even ends her unconventional witness testimony by saying “I hate Linda Tripp” with the jurors agreeing.
Although the questioning began aggressively in real life, Impeachment’s retelling of her testimony in which the jury surprisingly becomes increasingly sympathetic and comforting to Monica really did happen. All of the most ridiculous details of the testimony happened as shown, including Lewinsky asking the jurors to call her Monica and one juror continually questioning her about being with a married man. Impeachment’s accuracy in the testimony even goes down to Monica’s final line when she begins crying, in which she surprisingly says, “I would just like to say that no one ever asked me to lie and I was never promised a job for my silence. I'm really sorry for everything that's happened. And I hate Linda Tripp.” Bizarrely enough, this statement was followed by resounding encouragement from jurors who, exactly like in FX's TV show, truly did chime in with comments like “whatever goes around comes around” (via The Washington Post).
Linda Tripp also has a personal reckoning in Impeachment episode 9 as her isolation and feeling of widespread attacks get to her. Following the media frenzy, Linda had been living alone in a hotel room in which she obsessively read and made notes on newspaper articles about herself. American Crime Story also shows Linda becoming extremely angry with her employer Ken Bacon, having an outburst at his office when she believes he is purposefully refusing to give her the materials she requires. When speaking with the DOD spokesman, he reveals the government is also opening up an investigation after discovering she lied on her application. Kenneth Bacon (played by Community actor Jim Rash) informs her she lied about never having been arrested, which she says wasn’t relevant because she was only arrested as a teenager when a prank was being played on her, plus the charges were dropped.
It’s not clear whether she was actually living in a hotel at this time or confronted Bacon in his office, but the impending investigation about her lying on her application did happen. In 1998, Bacon revealed to a reporter that Linda lied about never having been arrested, which actually got him into much more trouble for breaking confidentiality laws. The incident is true, with 19-year-old Tripp having been arrested, held, and discharged for grand larceny. In 1969, Impeachment's Linda Tripp was accused of stealing $269 and a watch valued at $600 from various hotel rooms at the Lake Pond Inn, only to discover her friends had set her up by planting the money in her purse (via The Washington Post).
American Crime Story then documents what has happened with Paula Jones during this time, showing her in a hospital room preparing for plastic surgery. With the support of Susan Carpenter-McMillan, Paula is getting a nose job. This happened in real life, with the media continually reporting on Paula Jones getting a $9,000 nose job without understanding who paid for it (via AP News). It wasn’t reported at the time that Carpenter-McMillan had gone to the surgery with her, so this bit seemed to be added by Impeachment for the effect of recalling Jones’ latest happenings. Paula then tells her husband Steve (played by former SNL cast member Taran Killam) that the court threw out her case, so they get no money. The timeline of these events in American Crime Story isn’t completely accurate, since Jones’ surgery was reported in July 1998 and her case was thrown out by a judge three months prior in April 1998 (via CNN).
Impeachment Episode 10, "The Wilderness"
The series finale of Impeachment wraps up the story of Bill Clinton’s presidential impeachment and sex scandal, with Monica’s resolution kicking off with the information that she got a book deal with Andrew Morton. By the end of the episode, Monica is scheduled for book signings and interviews in New York due to the immense popularity of her account of the scandal. Yes, Monica’s book deal with the man who co-wrote Princess Diana Spencer’s biography is real, and is still on the market today. The book was released in February 1999, after which she embarked on an international book signing tour that continued her spotlight in the media and finally allowed the public to hear her side of the scandal. The series seemingly shows her signing books in New York City, but her only U.S. signing took place in Los Angeles (via CBS).
American Crime Story also focuses on showing what Paula Jones had to deal with in the aftermath of The Starr Report and sexual harassment lawsuit. Jones has been adamant about feeling used by the political right during this time in real life, which is exemplified by how none of her so-called “friends” stuck around after her lawsuit was dropped. Instead, Ryan Murphy's TV show documents how Paula Jones continues to be ostracized by the public and can’t obtain a job, leading her to perform psychic telephone calls supported by ads on television. After this debacle, Susan Carpenter-McMillan denounces Paula, especially after she agrees to an interview and photoshoot with the scandalous Penthouse Magazine. Just as Paula says in Impeachment, in real life she had to say yes to the 2000 Penthouse photoshoot due to immense debt to the IRS, no job prospects, and needing to care for her two sons (via Penthouse).
Amidst the release of The Starr Report, Bill and Hillary Clinton face more chaos and more hopeful prospects. It begins looking downhill for Bill Clinton once “Jane Doe 5,” Juanita Broaddrick, comes forward in a sitdown interview for Dateline NBC that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted her back in the 1970s. The interview took place in real life in February 1999, just a few weeks after Clive Owen's TV character was acquitted of his charges by the Senate. Impeachment then reveals the aftermath of the sexual harassment and assault accusations on Clinton following the trial, essentially making them irrelevant to the general public once he had already been acquitted. When it wasn’t as dire an event and spectacle anymore, listening to these women’s stories stopped becoming the media’s focus.
While most women in Impeachment had their lives turned upside-down, the Clintons seemed to thrive. Hillary’s extraordinary popularity in 1998 surpassed Bill’s, leading his advisors to ask her to send a call to flip moderates onto their side of the trial. Edie Falco's Hillary Clinton character then receives a call asking her to consider running for an open U.S. Senate seat in New York, which Impeachment later shows becoming a reality. In real life, Hillary set out on her campaign in 1999 and came out victorious, officially being sworn in as a New York Senator in January 2001. As recent history can attest, this was just the beginning for Hillary, as she would later run close races for the presidency.
Impeachment’s finale episode also documents what became of public enemy number one Linda Tripp after February of 1999. Following the news that Clinton was acquitted of both charges, Linda tells her daughter a story about regrettably idolizing her own father, who was later revealed to be a serial adulterer who lied to his family all her life. The story that Sarah Paulson’s Impeachment character relates about her father’s infidelities is true, and was widely speculated to be the reason why she became so invested in taking down Bill Clinton (via The New Yorker).
Linda is next seen in American Crime Story with a new look, having undergone extensive cosmetic surgery that makes her seem like a brand new woman. The timeline for this surgery is a bit off in Impeachment: American Crime Story, which show’s Linda’s new look being debuted shortly before her interview with George Magazine and right around the time of Monica’s New York City book signing. In real life, her major surgeries took place in December 1999, long before her interview with George in December 2000 and long after Monica’s book signing tour in March 1999 (via LA Times).