This morning a poster on the FreeRepublic website remembered an incident from the 1999 Clinton impeachment trial in which a man was removed from the Senate chamber and taken into custody — for wearing an anti-Clinton T-shirt. The story was reported the next day in the New York Daily News:
WASHINGTON A Pennsylvania school teacher was yanked out of a VIP Senate gallery and briefly detained last week during the impeachment trial for wearing a T-shirt with graphic language dissing President Clinton.
Dave Delp, 42, of Carlisle, Pa., and a friend had just settled into their seats last Saturday when four Capitol security guards approached them. Delp said yesterday he was ordered to button his coat and follow the guards. Outside the chamber, he was told “several people felt threatened by your shirt,” which said, “Bill Doesn’t Inhale He Just S—s.”
Even after establishing that Delp was a guest of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), the guards wouldn’t let him back in and escorted him to a basement security area, where they questioned and photographed him.
After being given one of the photos as a souvenir, Delp said he was banned from the Capitol for the rest of the day. “They were polite and professional,” Delp added, “but they really did scare me. I think I should have been given the chance to cover up.”
Capitol police declined to comment.