Monica Lewinsky marked the 20-year anniversary of her questioning by FBI agents and federal prosecutors about her relationship with former President Bill Clinton by asking her followers to share if they, too, “survived the unimaginable in your life.”
"for 20 years, i've marked 16 jan as the day i survived another year from 1998. on this 20th (!!!) anniversary, thinkin' maybe we could try a survivor's chain. whaddya think? (too corny?) RETWEET if you survived the unimaginable in your life," Lewinsky tweeted Tuesday.
????????♥️⚡️ for 20 years, i've marked 16 jan as the day i survived another year from 1998. on this 20th (!!!) anniversary, thinkin' maybe we could try a survivor's chain. whaddya think? (too corny?) RETWEET if you survived the unimaginable in your life ????????♥️⚡️— Monica Lewinsky (@MonicaLewinsky) January 16, 2018
On Jan. 16, 1998, then-Attorney General Janet Reno asked a panel of federal judges to grant independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who was investigating Whitewater, permission to expand the probe to include claims Clinton urged Lewinsky to lie about her relationship with the president.
The judges granted the request, and Lewinsky was then questioned by FBI agents and federal prosecutors in a room at the Ritz-Carlton hotel and offered immunity.
Lewinsky recalled that day in an article for Vanity Fair in June 2014.
“At age 24, cornered in a hotel room on January 16, 1998, with mainly male interrogators taking orders from Starr, I was discouraged from contacting my attorney and threatened with 27 years in jail for filing an affidavit denying the affair with Clinton, among other alleged crimes,” Lewinsky wrote. “I was offered immunity from that threat if I agreed to place monitored calls and wear a wire in conversations with two of the president’s confidants and possibly the president himself. I refused.”
Lewinsky’s tweet Tuesday was shared more than 900 times and “liked” by more than 5,000 Twitter users.