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Clinton: Mandela Helped Me Forgive GOP For Impeachment

Former President Bill Clinton shared an anecdote regarding Nelson Mandela and the aftermath of his impeachment Friday on CNN.

Clinton revealed shortly after the "impeachment business" finished on Capitol Hill, Rep. Henry Hyde (R., Ill.) who managed the impeachment trial requested a meeting at the White House.

The former president granted the meeting out of lessons of humility and forgiveness he learned from Mandela, he said:

BILL CLINTON:  I remember one day, oh, about a month after the whole impeachment business was over, Henry Hyde, who had run the whole show, unbelievably enough, maybe a few months after, it was shortly after, asked for a meeting at the White House, for something that he was interested in. He brought a delegation in. My staff said I can'tve you're going to do this. I said, it's my job, he's a senior member of Congress. They came and left. As far as they knew, I did not even remember what had happened. I was able to do that, because of what Nelson Mandela did for me, the way he helped me.

Former South African President Nelson Mandela was famously imprisoned for his persistent democratic advocacy and pursuit of racial equality in South Africa. Later in life Mandela reconciled with many of his captors when he became the President of South Africa.

Clinton, by contrast, was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice for blatantly lying under oath to Congressional investigators about his affair with Monica Lewinksy.