NY Post asks, will Bill Clinton be allowed female interns?

The New York Post has posed a provocative question about Hillary Clinton: Will she as president allow Bill Clinton to have female interns?

The former president, whose affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky led to his impeachment, would serve as first gentleman in a Hillary Clinton administration as well as possibly the head of her economic policy team.

{mosads}The New York tabloid, a frequent critic of the Clintons known for its sensational stories, published a story on Monday with the headline: “If elected, will Hillary let Bill have female interns again?”

“Bill Clinton sabotaged his second term as president when it was revealed he had a sordid sexual affair with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky,” writes the Post’s Carl Campanile. “The House of Representatives even voted to impeach Clinton over what came to be known as Monicagate.” 

The Post does speak to some legitimate sources once close to the Clintons in the ’90s, including Hank Sheinkopf, who was part of Bill Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign, as part of its story.

“Twenty years after Lewinsky, there are some people who won’t want him around interns,” said Sheinkopf. “If Hillary becomes president, there will have to be guidelines for the internship program to make people feel comfortable.” 

Still, even if the White House didn’t want the former president to have female interns, it would likely be illegal to do so, according to legal experts who spoke to The Hill. 

“If Bill Clinton, as First Spouse, ‘was not permitted’ to hire female interns, that would be sex discrimination,” explains Ann Juliano, law professor at Charles Widger School of Law at Villanova University. “A federal statute known as Title VII prohibits discrimination because of sex.” 

Juliano noted that exceptions can be made, but not in this particular case. 

“There is a very narrow exception that allows for hiring only one sex or religion or national origin, but ‘because you had inappropriate relations in the past with female interns’ just doesn’t quite support a sex-based restriction.”

Charles A. Krugel, human resources attorney and counselor on labor and employment law on behalf of business, agrees. 

“It’s illegal gender discrimination if there’s an attempt to limit who could be hired as Bill Clinton’s interns, on the basis of gender, should Hillary Clinton win in November,” Krugel says.   

“In order to discriminate on the basis of gender, the Clintons would have to prove that Bill suffers from a diagnosed sexual disorder that requires he can’t work around females or female interns.”

Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice after an affair with Lewinsky went public. A two-thirds vote to have Clinton removed from office could not be achieved in the Senate, however. 

The Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of 21st Century Fox. 

Updated at 7:01 p.m.