Monica Lewinsky Would Have Liked Starr Report To Be Treated Like The Mueller Report

Monica Lewinsky’s life would be unrecognizable if the Starr Report was never made public Image by Getty Images

By Jenny Singer March 28, 2019

Monica Lewinsky. She’s a household name. She’s associated, in most people’s minds, with graphic sex acts and humiliation.

Imagine a world in which you don’t know the name Monica Lewinsky. And now, imagine how good that would feel for Monica Lewinsky.

Lewinsky, whose relationship with then-President Bill Clinton as a 20-year-old White House intern led in part to Clinton’s impeachment, had one thing to say about the handling of the Mueller Report.

if. fucking. only. https://t.co/6N7SFiKRln

— Monica Lewinsky (@MonicaLewinsky) March 27, 2019

The long-awaited investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was completed last week but has not yet been released. According to Attorney General William P. Barr, one of the only people in the world to have seen the report, the investigation “did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”

While President Trump has celebrated this as a “total exoneration,” Barr’s report explicitly says that the Mueller report “does not exonerate” the president. Many in Congress — and in the public — are calling for the report to be released in full.

Among them is Monica Lewinsky.

In spite of being humiliated on an international scale as a young adult, Lewinsky has become a major national speaker and commentator. But if accusations against Clinton had been consolidated into a four page letter, you might never have learned her name. She wouldn’t be a punchline to you, she would just be a person.

If only!

Jenny Singer is the deputy life/features editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Jenny Singer is a freelance writer with pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and more. She was previously a staff writer at Glamour and the Forward, and she’s currently getting an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.

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