Monica Lewinsky, the former White House intern whose relationship with then-President Bill Clinton led to impeachment proceedings, took to Twitter on Tuesday to mark the 20th anniversary of the scandal that bears her name and to ask followers to share personal stories of survival and hardship.
"for 20 years, i've marked 16 jan as the day i survived another year from 1998. on this 20th (!!!) anniversary, thinkin' maybe we could try a survivor's chain. whaddya think? (too corny?) RETWEET if you survived the unimaginable in your life," Lewinsky wrote.
https://twitter.com/MonicaLewinsky/status/953271895666798592
According to a chronology of the scandal compiled by CNN, Jan. 16, 1998 was the date Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel in the Whitewater Investigation, requested permission from Attorney General Janet Reno to expand the jurisdiction of his probe to include perjury and obstruction of justice in the Paula Jones case. Jones, a former employee of the state of Arkansas, had sued Clinton, who previously served as Governor of Arkansas, for sexual harassment. During a recorded deposition for the Jones case, the president was asked under oath if he had ever had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky, an allegation Clinton denied at the time.
Jan. 16 was also the day Lewinsky was questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation about her alleged relationship with the president.
Hundreds of people responded to Lewinksy's tweet on Tuesday, including Jake Tapper, anchor of "State of the Union" and "The Lead" on CNN. Tapper castigated the Clinton, the media, and the "progressive community" for their "unconscionable" attacks on Lewinsky at the height of the controversy.
"What the Clinton WH and too many of its allies in media, politics, and the progressive community did to attack Monica was unconscionable," Tapper tweeted.
What the Clinton WH and too many of its allies in media, politics, and the progressive community did to attack Monica was unconscionable. https://t.co/yIscHi5dAS
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 16, 2018
Tapper and Lewinsky briefly dated while they both lived in Washington, D.C. during the late 1990s, before the scandal broke. The CNN anchor has openly discussed the human side of Lewinsky that he experienced during the short time they spent together, a side Tapper states was never properly portrayed by the media.