In the second term of the Clinton-Gore administration, American prosperity continued, while international crises arose in the Middle East and Yugoslavia. Even bigger problems at home began in 1998. During the course of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Clinton by Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr accused Clinton of lying to a federal grand jury about his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Over the course of the next year, Americans were bombarded with Starr’s findings, complete with sordid details of the two-year affair, which Clinton vigorously denied—until he was faced with DNA evidence and was forced to admit his relationship with the then-21-year-old Lewinsky.

On December 19, 1998, William Jefferson Clinton became only the second President (after Andrew Johnson in 1868) to be impeached when the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, voting virtually along party lines, charged him with perjury and obstruction of justice. In accordance with the majority of public opinion, the Senate acquitted Clinton on February 12, 1999, although he may face indictment upon leaving office. Many will argue that Clinton’s mistakes in his personal life have forever tarnished what would otherwise have been a relatively successful Presidency.

Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton have one daughter, Chelsea, who began her undergraduate work at Stanford University in 1997. In the summer of 1999, the Clintons purchased a house in New York’s Westchester County. On November 7, 2000, just four months from the end of his own presidency, Bill Clinton saw his wife become the only first lady ever to be elected to public office when she won election to the United States Senate from the state of New York.

Clinton continued to weather a good deal of criticism in the year following his presidency, most notably controversy concerning a number of pardons the ex-president gave in the final days of his administration. In the summer of 2001, Clinton moved his headquarters into an office in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. He also signed a reported $10 million contract with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., to write his memoirs, a deal believed to be the biggest ever for a non-fiction book.

In October 2001, Clinton was disbarred from practicing law before the United States Supreme Court. He had previously had his Arkansas law license suspended for five years as a result of a disbarment lawsuit brought by a committee of the Arkansas State Supreme Court. .