Once the issue was put out to the media, it became a scandal. The media continuously questioned Clinton and Clinton continued to deny any allegations. Then, Lewinsky testified all of what she knew and Starr was able to get the President to agree to testify before the Grand Jury on August 17, 1998. After Clinton testified, Starr sent a report to Congress claiming that the President had committed acts that could result in impeachment. .
The idea of impeachment came from the British Parliament. According to the Constitution, the House of Representatives have the sole power to impeach a President and the Senate has the power to be the court for impeachment trials.2 This means that impeachment can result in an elected official being removed from office but it can lead to that if Senate approves the impeachment. As Hamilton explains in Federalist 65, impeachment is more of a political move than legal action. It is a way for the House to tell the President that they do not trust him or have confidence in him. Impeachment also results in bad publicity and the tarnishing of ones name. The founders feared tyranny so they considered impeachment so important that they made it part of the Constitution even before they defined the contours of the Presidency. As James P. Pfiffner states in The Modern Presidency, "the primary purpose of impeachment is to remove a president who has used his office in such a way as to undermine the Constitution or whose continuance in office poses a threat to the citizenry."3 The Founders decided to give the power of impeachment to the House of Representatives since it is considered the peoples branch of Congress. They believed that the representatives would vote based on their peoples interests. The Founders of the Constitution also came up with offenses that were to be possible for impeachment such as treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.
