Jones v. Clinton

Paula Corbin Jones kept quiet for more than two years about what she says happened on May 8, 1991. She was afraid, she said, that nobody would believe her story -- which was, essentially, that Bill Clinton, who was then governor of Arkansas, noticed her at a desk in the lobby of the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock, where she was handing out name tags for a conference, had a state trooper bring her to a private room, and there made a crude request for oral sex, in the process giving her a look at what she would later call the "distinguishing characteristics" of his genital area.

What broke Jones' silence was an article in the January 1994 issue of American Spectator magazine that implied that someone called "Paula" had been a willing sexual conquest of Clinton's. Jones hired Daniel Traylor, a Little Rock lawyer who had specialized in real estate and was clearly out of his depth.

Traylor had Jones tell her story for the first time in public at a Feb. 11, 1994, press conference in Washington where she shared a stage with Clinton bashers, which helped to convince many that Jones was a tool, witting or unwitting, of Clinton haters. Though Jones is said by partisans to be oblivious to politics, Susan Carpenter-McMillan, a friend and now Jones' chief spokesperson, says Jones was indeed used by extreme rightists, and was too naive to realize it.

Jones hired new attorneys, Gil Davis and Joseph Cammarata (who have since removed themselves from the case), both in the Washington area, and pressed ahead with preparations for a sexual-harassment lawsuit. Clinton responded by hiring Washington super-lawyer Robert Bennett, which to some was a signal that the White House was more concerned by Jones' story than it had let on.

The two sides came close to a settlement that would have headed off the lawsuit. Bennett faxed Jones' lawyers a statement that the president was to make publicly. Clinton was to say that he had "no recollection" of meeting Jones in a hotel room, but "I do not challenge her claim that we met there," and that in any event "she did not engage in any improper or sexual conduct."

Then some overeager spinner at the White House leaked word that Jones was about to drop her suit because she knew she had no case. That tore it. The suit was filed May 6, 1994 -- almost exactly three years after the alleged encounter -- and at the last possible moment under the relevant statutes of limitations.

Bennett, in an argument that made it all the way to the Supreme Court, pushed to have the case put off the case until Clinton left office, saying that, given the demands of his office, the president should not be required to answer to civil claims. The justices were unmoved. In a stunning 9-0 verdict, they ruled May 27 that the case could proceed.

Latest Developments

Frustrated by their client's refusal to settle the case out of court, Davis and Cammarata, citing "fundamental differences" with Jones "as to the future course of this litigation," petitioned federal judge Susan Webber Wright in September to remove themselves from the case, a request granted Sept. 9. Texas attorney Donovan Campbell was named as Jones' new lawyer on Oct. 1.

Wright, the same judge who presided over the Whitewater trial of Jim and Susan McDougal and former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, has set trial for late May 1998 and placed a gag order over all case proceedings. Depositions began Oct. 12 in Little Rock, with Jones, her mother and sister, and two friends, among others, giving sworn statements.

In early December, Jones amended her complaint, widening her charges against Clinton and dropping her defamation complaint against former state trooper Danny Ferguson.