Watch Dale Bumpers deliver the iconic closing argument in Bill Clinton's impeachment trial

(Image credit: Joyce Naltchayan/AFP/Getty Images)

published 2 January 2016

Former Arkansas Gov. and U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers (D) died due to natural causes Friday, The Associated Press reports. He was 90.

After leaving the Senate, the close friend of then-President Bill Clinton returned to defend him in his impeachment trial. Bumpers spoke before the Senate, who would go onto acquit Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice related to the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal.

Clinton "suffered a terrible moral lapse, a marital infidelity," Bumpers told his former colleagues in 1999. "Not a breach of the public trust, not a crime against society."

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Watch his closing argument, in which Bumpers even manages to elicit laughs from the senators, on C-SPAN.

"I loved him. I loved learning from him and laughing with him," Clinton said in a statement. "I will miss him very much."

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Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.