Monica Lewinsky disagrees with Hillary that Bill Clinton's affair wasn't an 'abuse of power'

Danny Moloshok/Reuters

Monica Lewinsky

• Hillary Clinton has defended her husband, former President Bill Clinton, over his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky by directly contradicting her characterization what happened.
• Lewinsky, who at 22 had an affair with then-President Clinton, called it in March 2018 a "gross abuse of power."
• The former Secretary of State Clinton said on Sunday that it was not an abuse of power.

Hillary Clinton has defended her husband, former President Bill Clinton, over his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky by directly contradicting her characterization of what happened.

In 1995, when Lewinsky was a 22-year-old White House intern, she had a number of sexual encounters with the then-president, which he later lied under oath to obscure.

After the affair became public, Lewinsky was targeted by pundits belonging to both parties and reported feeling bullied to the point of feeling suicidal.

At the dawn of the #MeToo movement of women coming forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against mostly men in power, Lewinsky wrote that she had been moved to tears and deeply empathized with the accusers.

"[W]hat transpired between Bill Clinton and myself was not sexual assault, although we now recognise that it constituted a gross abuse of power," she wrote at Vanity Fair.

But the former first lady during an uncomfortable interview on "CBS Sunday Morning" gave a different version of events.

"In retrospect, do you think Bill should've resigned in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal?" CBS correspondent Tony Dokoupil asked her

"Absolutely not," Clinton said.

"It wasn't an abuse of power?" Dokoupil continued.

"No. No," said Clinton.

Clinton then called for President Donald Trump, who has been accused by numerous women on numerous occasions of sexual misconduct or assault, to be investigated.