Article snippet: WASHINGTON — Even as the House Judiciary Committee prepared to vote on articles of impeachment, Lindsey Graham was in a backroom trying to cut a last-minute deal. If the president fully admitted what he had done, he could head off charges of high crimes and misdemeanors. Graham scribbled on a piece of paper what the president had to say. As the president came before cameras at the White House, members of the committee suspended their meeting to watch on television. But while he generally admitted wrongdoing, he did not go far enough for Graham. Nine minutes after he stopped speaking, the committee voted along party lines to impeach President Bill Clinton. Twenty-one years later almost to the day, the House Judiciary Committee last week gathered to approve articles of impeachment against another president along party lines. For anyone who lived through the last time that happened, there was a powerful sense of constitutional déjà vu. Closing one’s eyes, it was possible to hear many of the same arguments articulated in almost the same words as in 1998, with each party switching sides. Yet as much as the impeachment battle over President Trump echoes that of Clinton, it is also striking how much is different. Back in 1998, the impeachment battle felt like the ultimate drama, so intense that the rest of the world seemed to have stopped spinning on its axis, yet so fluid and suspenseful that it was never entirely certain how it would play out. This time, it feels lik... Link to the full article to read more