In New E book, Boehner Says He Regrets Clinton Impeachment

WASHINGTON – Former Ohio Republican spokesman John Boehner says in new memoir that he regrets supporting the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and calls it a partisan attack he would now have gladly turned down.

In his book About the House: A Washington Memory, a copy of which was obtained from the New York Times, Boehner accused Texas representative Tom DeLay, then Republican No. 2, of a politically motivated campaign against Mr. Clinton over his affair Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern.

The Republican-run House voted in 1998 to indict Mr. Clinton on two counts. He was acquitted by the Senate.

“I think the Republicans charged him for one reason and one reason – because it was strongly recommended to us by a Tom DeLay,” writes Boehner. “Tom believed that the Clinton indictment would get us all those seats in the House of Representatives, would be a huge win politically, and he convinced enough of the membership and the GOP base that it was true.

“I was on board at the time,” continued Mr. Boehner. “I won’t pretend otherwise. But I regret it now. I regret that I did not fight against it. “

Mr. Boehner’s memoir, the cover of which is a photo of the former speaker holding a glass of Merlot with a burning cigarette in an ashtray next to him – his natural habitat for decades – are full of colorful stories from his time in Congress.

He does not hit those whom he regards as right-wing bomb throwers in his group. (He spares Senator Ted Cruz of Texas some particularly violent insults.) And he issues a stinging denunciation from Donald J. Trump, saying that the now-former president “said this by his supporters in the Capitol on January 6th and January 6th.” instigated a bloody uprising “that the Republican Party was taken over by“ Whack Jobs ”.

Mr. Trump’s “refusal to accept the election result not only cost the Republicans the Senate, it also led to mob violence,” writes Boehner.

Mr. Boehner also provides details on some of the most talked about exchanges on Capitol Hill, including the time when Republican Don Young, Republican of Alaska, pulled a knife on Mr. Boehner on the floor of the house after speaking critically about loved ones projects Alaska.

“Sometimes I can still feel the thing on my neck,” writes Boehner. (The two would remedy the situation later, and Mr. Boehner would serve as best man at Mr. Young’s wedding.)

Mr. Boehner also recounts an encounter in his office where Mark Meadows, then a Republican representative from North Carolina and leader of the right-wing Freedom Caucus, fell on his knees to ask for forgiveness after a failed political coup attempt against Mr. Boehner.

“Not long after the vote – a vote that, like many of the Freedom Caucus efforts, ended in pathetic failure – I was told that Meadows wanted to hit me one-on,” recalled Boehner. “Before I knew it, he had fallen off the couch and on his knees. Right there on my carpet. That was a first. His hands came together in front of him as if to pray. ‘Mr. Speaker, please forgive me, “he said, or equivalent.”

Mr. Boehner said he was wondering at the moment what Mr. Meadow’s “elite and uncompromising gang of Freedom Caucus warriors would have made of their star organizer on the verge of tears, but that wasn’t my problem.”

Mr Boehner looks down on the man who would later become Mr Trump’s White House Chief of Staff.

“I took a long, slow drag on my camel cigarette,” he writes. “Let the tension hang a little, you know? I looked at my camel pack on the desk next to me, then looked down at him and asked (as if I didn’t know), ‘What for?’ “

Maggie Haberman contributed to the coverage from New York.