BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: In today's continuing observation of CNN's 20th anniversary, a look back at President Clinton's impeachment trial. That trial got under way one year ago today.</s>ANNOUNCER: Bringing you the world for 20 years, this is CNN.</s>BOB FRANKEN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This was a moment that had been building for a year. The Monica Lewinsky matter exploded. There had been a year of a national preoccupation with that, and the various unsavory details, which suddenly unfolded at the end in this highly ceremonial, intensely covered impeachment trial; only the second time in the history of the United States that a president had been impeached.</s>CHIEF JUSTICE WILLIAM REHNQUIST, SUPREME COURT: The Senate will convene as a court of impeachment.</s>REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R-WI), IMPEACHMENT TRIAL MANAGER: We are here today because President William Jefferson Clinton decided to put himself above the law, not once, not twice, but repeatedly.</s>FRANKEN: The truth of the matter is, we knew how this was going to turn out. There was no way that the president was going to be convicted and removed from office, but he was going to be dragged through a Senate trial, he was going to be shamed by a Senate trial, was going to have his legacy forever defined with that Senate trial.</s>REP. JAMES ROGAN (R-CA), IMPEACHMENT TRIAL MANAGER: He was not obliging himself to tell the grand jury the partial truth. He was not obliging himself to tell the "this is embarrassing, so I think I'll fudge on it a little bit" truth. He was required to tell the truth.</s>FRANKEN: One of the advantages that you have in our business is sometimes you get the opportunity to do things that will be history, and obviously this was one of them.
CNN20: Senate Impeachment Trial Begins, January 14, 1999