Background.

While the catalyst for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton was a 1998 report submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, investigations into Clinton's background began shortly after he took office. In 1993 Attorney General Janet Reno appointed a special counsel to investigate his involvement in a failed real estate venture, known as Whitewater, and in a defunct Arkansas financial institution, Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan. Originally headed by former federal prosecutor Robert B. Fiske Jr., Starr took over as independent counsel in August 1995. The investigation was gradually broadened to include the suicide of Deputy White House counsel Vincent W. Foster Jr., whose files were discovered missing after his death; the truthfulness of Clinton's depositions in the sexual harassment case filed by Paula Corbin Jones, a former Arkansas state employee; and his alleged relationship with former White House intern...