Contents
- January 18, 1990
- May 5, 1990
- April 27, 1991
- April 23, 1992
- November 22, 1992
- June 22, 1993
- July 20, 1993
- September 15, 1993
- October 21, 1993
- November 11, 1993
- May 6, 1994
- May 23, 1994
- February 8, 1995
- May 10, 1995
- July 15, 1995
- September 6, 1995
- November 1995
- April 6, 1997
- January 20, 1998
- August 17, 1998
- December 19, 1998
- September 15, 1999
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January 18, 1990
DC mayor Marion Barry’s gal pal Rasheeda Moore secretly cooperates with the feds, helps get him nabbed on drug charges at the Vista International Ho-tel during a rendezvous. “Bitch set me up,” Barry says. Nine months later, he gets six months in prison.
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Marlene Ramallo Chalmers, a Bolivian likely in her mid-thirties (records disagree) with a cocaine-trafficking conviction, marries 78-year-old millionaire Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke. Shortly afterward, prosecutors drop check-kiting charges against her in return for her co-operation in drug cases.
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Virginia’s US senator Chuck Robb admits to accepting a massage from a former Miss Virginia when he was governor but denies he had sex with her. The beauty queen later poses for Playboy; Robb later wins reelection.
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Barry is sprung from prison. He’ll soon run for the Ward 8 DC Council seat and win in a landslide.
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Ten women accuse US senator Bob Packwood of making unwanted sexual advances. (The number of accusers later doubles.) The Oregon lawmaker suggests that his drinking may have been an issue and seeks treatment.
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Manassas Park resident Lorena Bobbitt slices off the penis of her husband, John Wayne Bobbitt, after nonconsensual sex, igniting a tabloid story for the ages. The organ is re-attached at Prince William Hospital.
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Clinton aide Vince Foster is found dead in a park off the GW Parkway. After his death, aides remove from his office files about the Clintons’ 1970s failed real-estate investment in a project called Whitewater, adding tinder to conspiracy theories. The attorney general will later announce an investigation into Whitewater, and Ken Starr will come to lead it as independent counsel.
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September 15, 1993
Marlene Cooke is arrested and charged with a DUI after she leaves Cafe Milano and is “seen hurtling down M Street NW in Georgetown with a man clinging to the hood of her Jaguar convertible and pounding the windshield,” per the Washington Post. (The guy was her Dutch paramour.) Cooke throws her gold pumps at an officer, who suggests she remove them for a sobriety test.
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October 21, 1993
A Senate committee seeks to force Packwood to turn over his diaries, which will show his versions of his harassment and abuse—“If she didn’t want me to feather her nest, why did she come into the Xerox room?”—as well as shady dealings with lobbyists.
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November 11, 1993
John Wayne Bobbitt is found not guilty of marital sexual assault. Soon after, Lorena Bobbitt is found not guilty of malicious wounding. After they divorce, she seeks a quiet life; he has penile augmentation and acts in adult films.
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May 6, 1994
Paula Jones, a former state employee in Arkansas, files suit against President Clinton, claiming he sexually harassed her while governor.
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May 23, 1994
Barry says he’ll run for a fourth mayoral term. He later wins handily. “Get over it,” he tells white voters after the primary. “I’m the best person for Washington.”
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February 8, 1995
Jack Kent Cooke announces he’ll divorce Marlene, who he claims was never legally divorced from her previous husband.
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May 10, 1995
Barry returns from a trip to West Africa, where he’s given a crown, an acre of land, and the title King for Life. He maintains that the trip cost taxpayers nothing.
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September 6, 1995
A Senate committee votes to expel Packwood from the body. He resigns the next day and goes on to have a successful career in lobbying.
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October 21, 1993
A Senate committee seeks to force Packwood to turn over his diaries, which will show his versions of his harassment and abuse—“If she didn’t want me to feather her nest, why did she come into the Xerox room?”—as well as shady dealings with lobbyists.
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September 15, 1993
Marlene Cooke is arrested and charged with a DUI after she leaves Cafe Milano and is “seen hurtling down M Street NW in Georgetown with a man clinging to the hood of her Jaguar convertible and pounding the windshield,” per the Washington Post. (The guy was her Dutch paramour.) Cooke throws her gold pumps at an officer, who suggests she remove them for a sobriety test.
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November 1995
Clinton begins an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky during a GOP-prompted government shutdown. Lewinsky later gets a job at the Pentagon and be-friends Linda Tripp, who begins to re-cord their phone calls.
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April 6, 1997
Jack Kent Cooke dies at 84. It emerges that he changed his will to cut out Marlene from his estate, valued at $500 million to $825 million. She sues; the estate settles for $20 million.
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January 20, 1998
The Lewinsky scandal breaks; Tripp’s tapes are public exhibit A. Six days later, the President asserts he “did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”
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August 17, 1998
Clinton testifies in the Paula Jones matter. He admits to “morally wrong” behavior with Lewinsky but claims they didn’t have sex. Independent counsel Ken Starr’s team believes this contradicts an earlier deposition in which he denied a relationship with the intern. One month later, the famous Starr Report is released. It says the President perjured himself and obstructed justice.
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December 19, 1998
Congress impeaches Clinton. The Senate ultimately acquits the President. The same day, Bob Livingston, who’s set to succeed Newt Gingrich as House speaker—and who called for Clinton’s resignation—says he’ll resign before Hustler can run an exposé about his extramarital affairs. The job will go to Dennis Hastert, later imprisoned for sexually assaulting children.
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September 15, 1999
Marlene Cooke is convicted of driving under the influence after a meal at Sesto Senso. She quietly leaves for Rome in 2000 after serving a seven-day sentence. Washington scandals have never recovered.
Photograph of Marlene and Jack Kent Cooke by Shutterstock.
Photograph of Barry by Elvert Barnes/FLickr.
Photograph of Packwood by National Archives.
Photograph of Bobbitt by Jeff Elkins.
Photograph of impeachment hearing and Ken Starr courtesy of Library of Congress.
This article appears in the December 2021 issue of Washingtonian.
