Former impeachment manager James Rogan: I'd do it again

Former House impeachment manager James Rogan was interviewed by Conan Nolan of KNBC-TV in Los Angeles, discussing his tell-all page-turner "Catching Our Flag: Behind the Scenes of a Presidential Impeachment."

Even though the impeachment of President Clinton cost Rogan his congressional seat, the author told Nolan more than 10 years of hindsight hadn't changed his mind, that he still believes trying the president before the Senate was the right thing to do.

The interview will air twice later today, but can also be seen on the television station's website.

"Catching Our Flag" is a WND Book publication based on Rogan's extensive journaling through the historic impeachment and trial of President Clinton – an experience from which he believes Barack Obama cut his political teeth.

TRENDING: Republicans move to replace GOP canvasser who voted to certify Biden win

Get "Catching Our Flag," personally autographed exclusively at the WND Superstore.

Rogan, a former California congressman and current judge, believes Obama's entire approach to politics is based on the lessons he learned from Clinton's handling of his biggest political crisis, as he wrote in an exclusive commentary in WND.

Rogan believes Obama "lives within a new political paradigm with us ever since Bill Clinton's impeachment" in which it is deemed advantageous to:

• "Attack opponents endlessly, but always end the attack by saying you want to 'work with them,' and demand they end the 'bitter partisanship' infecting Washington";
• "Keep telling your story, no matter how much evidence (or poll numbers) undermines the claims";
• When the voters respond initially with shock or disfavor, keep pressing forward. In time, they'll grow tired and bored with the irritant. Given enough time, there is a good chance they'll turn their ire on the people holding you accountable for whatever shocked or irritated them in the first place."

Rogan points to Clinton's stature today as a respected elder statesman as proof of the success of the approach.

While Americans recall Clinton's problems with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, they know little about the other scandals that got lost in the shuffle, such as renting out the Lincoln Bedroom to political donors; trading pardons; Arlington gravesites for campaign donations; paying hush money to imprisoned former top aides; laundering communist Chinese military money into campaign coffers; compromising military secrets to help major donors; and the unending "gates," including Chinagate, Filegate and Travelgate."

"Most people probably remember Clinton's unending Lewinsky scandal denials, but who really remembers he signed a plea bargain on his last day in office admitting his lies to avoid criminal prosecution for perjury and obstruction of justice?" Rogan writes.

RELATED: Corsi on 'Coast to Coast AM' tonight

"Who really remembers he resigned his law licenses before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Arkansas Supreme Court in order to avoid disbarment?

Rogan concludes that Obama is neither blind nor ignorant but a gambler, "who may be gambling his presidency on the lessons learned from Bill Clinton's impeachment."

"In 1998, the question seemed mild by comparison: whether a lame-duck president would finish out his term, despite his serial violations of law. Today, the lessons learned from that question may have far deeper implications for America's future," he writes.

"The Senate acquittal of Bill Clinton on all charges in the late 1990s may be the last chapter in the saga: perhaps it was prologue to our current political landscape."

Rogan's life is recounted in his book "Rough Edges: My Unlikely Road from Welfare to Washington," which has been called by former House majority leader Newt Gingrich "one of the best examples of the American dream that I know of."

Read Rogan's exclusive WND commentary