Impeachment: American Crime Story promises to be the most controversial entry in the Ryan Murphy TV universe yet. The latest installment of the true crime anthology series dramatizes the scandal that erupted due to President Bill Clinton’s 1995 affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky and the national crisis that followed.
And now we’ve got our first glimpse of the series. FX’s teaser trailer follows Beanie Feldstein’s Lewinsky as she traverses the halls of the West Wing with a gift for the President secreted amongst official documents. And we mean “follows” literally: we mostly only see the character from behind, and never get a look at her face.
Set to premiere on September 7, Impeachment features Murphy’s signature flair for stunt casting: Edie Falco as Hillary Clinton, Clive Owen as Bill Clinton, Billy Eichner as Matt Drudge, Betty Gilpin as Ann Coulter! The series is based on Jeffrey Toobin’s 1999 book A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President. Toobin’s 1996 book The Run of His Life : The People v. O.J. Simpson served as the basis for the acclaimed first season of American Crime Story. (And, yes, it’s that Jeffrey Toobin.) According to FX’s description, Impeachment will center the women involved in the scandal: Lewinsky, Linda Tripp (Sarah Paulson) and Paula Jones (Annaleigh Ashford).
The new installment has taken a winding path to the small screen. It was first announced in early 2017 as the show’s fourth season before being scrapped a year later. But Murphy and co. revived the storyline in 2019, though the season was pushed back due to the pandemic.
