Monica Lewinsky – 1973–

Lewinsky began working as an intern in the Clinton White House in 1995, but it was while she was employed as a paid Pentagon staffer that she had a short-term sexual relationship with Clinton. The scandal was detailed in a report written under the direction of Kenneth Starr, an independent counsel appointed to investigate allegations of possibly impeachable offenses committed by the president. The report concluded that Clinton had violated his oath of office by perjuring himself in a sworn deposition he had given in an earlier sex scandal. Motivated in part by the Lewinsky affair and based on the Starr Report, Congress voted, along party lines, to impeach President Clinton, who was nevertheless acquitted on February 12, 1999. After the scandal, Lewinsky used her dubious celebrity to start a designer handbag business (closed in 2004) and to host a short-lived “reality TV” series, Mr. Personality (2003). She then enrolled in graduate school, studying social psychology.