This book has clearly been extensively researched, much of the detail is presented to us, but rather than it being a readable gathering of what happened os we can draw our own conclusions. We have endless ramblings and assertions that are clearly shaped by the author's own views. It is a shame there is a good story in here fighting to get out.

With thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A prescient book given the current political situation, A Vast Conspiracy lays out the facts of the impeachment of then President, Bill Clinton. Clinton was riding a wave of popularity but there had long been rumours about his dalliances with women other than his wife, Hillary. It was also rumoured that there was something more sinister to these extra marital encounters and that they weren’t entirely consensual. Clinton’s quite mind boggling decision to start a physical affair with intern, Monica Lewinsky, opened the door for his impeachment and the near collapse of his presidency. In a new introduction the author notes that attitudes have changed over the years and Lewinsky shouldn’t be seen as some kind of temptress who seduced the president. It’s clear there was an abuse of power from Clinton’s side at the very least, whether he realised it or not. It’s a really fascinating read and shows just how hard it is for an impeachment to be successful. It appears to be a mixture of rock solid evidence, perfect timing and the all important numbers in the house. It’s interesting that one of the main reasons behind the failure of the Clinton impeachment was the lack of a smoking gun, the prosecutors fell into the rabbit hole of the long running conspiracies about the Clintons, convinced that there was a bigger crime hidden out there. This book is a must read, a snapshot of history that still fascinates today.

I received a ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for a fair review.

I felt quite sick reading this in places as everyone was either after money or power. I always thought Monica Lewinsky was an innocent party in all of this but in fact she was the instigator of the affair but that does not mean that Bill Clinton should have reacted the way he did to her behaviour! However by the end I did feel sorry for her as she did not deserve to be treated the way she was.
The book was rather long-winded and I didn't really understand a lot about the voting side of things. However the author has clearly done his research. There were also a long list of characters, interestingly Brett Kavanagh is mentioned who would later get a taste of his own medicine! I think if you are American and followed this fairly closely at the time it will be a fascinating read. But for me, being British and only really remembering 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman' it was a bit of marathon read.

Sex, lies and audiotape…

Every detail you ever wanted to know about the whole Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, and several that you didn’t. This is more than a salacious recounting of the affair that nearly brought down a President, however. Jeffrey Toobin argues convincingly that politicians on both sides of the aisle had gradually been using the courts more and more to decide political questions, and that the Clinton scandal was a clear indication that the balance of power had shifted, and that the legal system was from now on to be the arbiter of all political questions in the US. He also suggests that it was the beginning of the sordid game beloved by politicians and the media (but not so much by the public, he implies) of dragging political opponents down, not by dissecting their poor performance as politicians, but by pretended moral outrage over their private behaviour.

The book was originally published in 2000, so long before the MeToo movement but at a time when questions of sexual abuse in the workplace were being raised by feminist groups. In his introduction, Toobin admits that he may have treated Lewinsky differently had he been writing now, when terms like “power imbalance” are part of the everyday lexicon. To be honest, I’m glad he wrote it when he did then, for two reasons. Firstly, my opinion then (when I was a youngish, ambitious, working woman) and now is that a 22-year-old woman is a grown adult, perfectly capable of making her own decisions, and therefore morally responsible for her own behaviour. There was never a suggestion that Clinton forced himself on Lewinsky – quite the reverse – so while I think he’s a disgusting and rather pathetically inadequate adulterous pig, I’m not willing to see her as his victim. (Her treatment later, by her tape-recording “friend” and the lawyers investigating Clinton, seems to me far more abusive than anything Clinton did to her.) Secondly, because Toobin wrote it in the heat of the moment, more or less, it gives a much clearer picture, I think, of the attitudes prevalent at that time than any later history, trying hard to tell the story through the filter of a 2020 lens, could ever do. Although Toobin is pretty tough on Lewinsky, he also shows no mercy to Clinton, so this is in no way an apologia.

Toobin spares us none of the intimate detail, and I fear I learned far more than I wanted or needed to about Clinton’s anatomy and sexual preferences, not to mention Lewinsky’s underwear and performative techniques. (It made me realise that, back in the day, although the case was reported on at extremely boring length over here too, our dear BBC must have decided to leave out the most salacious details, for which I belatedly thank them.) However, in terms of the book I do think it was necessary to include them, because part of Toobin’s argument is exactly that public interest arguments shouldn’t justify this level of intrusion into the minutiae of sex between consenting adults. This case opened the door to the constant diet of sleaze that is now common currency in what we laughably call political debate. Does the public have the right to know their President paid a porn star for her silence about their affair? Probably – it goes to questions of character and vulnerability to blackmail. But do we really need a detailed account of the act complete with anatomical measurements? I think not.

The bulk of the book, however, is about the Starr investigation, and how incestuous the whole relationship between the legal and political systems of the US has become, with partisan lawyers and judges acting to down political opponents and circumvent the laws of the land, rather than behaving as impartial administrators of justice. This provides a lot of insight for outsiders, and I expect for many Americans too, on why the most important agenda item for many politicians seems to be to pack the courts with their own appointees. One only has to see the reaction of the left to the appointment of Kavanaugh (who plays a bit part in the Clinton story), or the desperation with which the Democrats are praying that Ginsberg will be able to remain in her role until next January, or the disgust of Republicans that Chief Justice Roberts has “betrayed” the right in a couple of recent judgements to know that this politicisation of the legal system is corrupting even the Supreme Court. Toobin shows us the origins of this, and the collusion of all sides in allowing it to happen. There were several chapters where, had the names been omitted, the book could as easily have been about Trump, Mueller, and the biased and polarised media of today’s America.

So despite all the sleazy details, I found this a fascinating and illuminating scrutiny of the modern American political system. It also surprised me that so many of the political players back then are still influential now – Kavanaugh, George Conway, Ann Coulter were all linked to the Starr investigation, while many of the Senators and members of Congress on both sides, mostly not young or junior even back then, were trotting out opposite arguments during the Trump impeachment two decades later. It made me wonder why the US seems to have stuck – these same people have been running it, badly, for decades. Maybe it’s time for a generational shift, though since the major question in this year’s election seems to be which of the candidates is less senile I’m not expecting it to happen soon. Recommended to Americans who want to understand how and why their system fails them, and to Brits and others as a stark warning not to follow them down the road of giving lawyers and judges more power than our elected politicians. 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, William Collins.

A Vast Conspiracy, Jeffrey Toobin

An international bestseller, the definitive account of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandals, A Vast Conspiracy casts an insightful eye over the extraordinary ordeal that nearly brought down a president.

This was a DNF for me. I’m sure it is a well researched book and this reprint includes a forward from the author explaining how time has changed how we view the women involved in the scandal.
Unfortunately that forward was just not enough for me, the portrayal of the women involved in these events with Clinton is horrendous, abuse of power may not have been clearly understood when this book was written but i’m still not the general notion of respecting women was. Clinton at 20% in, has his reputation barely touched whereas the first woman involved, Paula Jones has been dragged across the pages. I didn’t want to reach Lewinsky, a woman who, at this point, has suffered enough.
I am, by now, tired of male driven narratives into abuses of power such as this. A Vast Conspiracy is now outdated and should have remained in the past.

This book was completely up my street. Having already listened to a podcast series on this very topic I was so impressed that there was more to learn. Such a great guilty pleasure.

So I realised half way through this was a re-release of a book I had read some time ago. However this is comprehensive account of what went on during the Clinton affair and the story that almost brought down a President.

I have always loved politics and remember the sensational story about this affair. Fast forward to now and the #Metoo movement this book examines how many women are always portrayed as the bad person even though it's the men who are married. It really changed my view of Clinton and showed how money and power can let you get away with anything, An brilliantly written and informative book.

A Vast Conspiracy was published 20 years ago now, but it's still very relevant and is a sobering read, detailing the whole Clinton/Lewinsky affair.

My thanks to Netgalley and William Collins for a copy of “A vast conspiracy “. by Jeffrey Toobin.

This is a very detailed account of the Clinton/ Lewinsky scandal.
I m not really the target reader for this book but I have read several books recently about the Trump administration and enjoyed them.For me this was overlong and I have even less regard for the main players than I did before., so I ended up skimming through this.
I have given this a higher rating than I was going to as I feel this just wasn’t for me and the book seems very well written.

This was written twenty years ago and while Toobin has decided not to change the text, keeping it as a record of its own time, it is now framed with a foreword that admits that the mainstreaming of #MeToo has made him reconsider his own opinions, especially some of the harsher views he gives of the women, not least Monica Lewinsky.

I found this both immensely readable and even-handed: it's a journalistic account that also looks beyond the events to think about how they were landmarks in the history of sexual investigative reporting and foregrounded the demise of 'traditional' media and a shift towards the unregulated internet.

It's also a story that holds everyone involved up to scrutiny: from Bill Clinton who undoubtedly lied (even if the investigation into his rather sleazy sex life had no bearing on his work as president); to the rabid hounding by ultra right-wing antagonists (we're talking the Christian right here who are active in homophobic and anti-abortion advocacy and loathed Clinton's progressive agenda) who didn't care a jot about Lewinsky or Paula Jones and were just looking to humiliate and get rid of Clinton by any means; to the exploiters who were lining up book deals by revealing their 'inside stories'.

It's a sobering, shameful, shabby and degrading story for everyone involved - there are no heroes here. And I couldn't, as they say, put it down!