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Court weighing Jones' appeal looking for evidence of possible perjury by Clinton

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, November 12) -- A source close to the Paula Jones legal team tells CNN that the appeals court weighing her dismissed lawsuit against President Clinton is looking for evidence of possible perjury by the president.

The source says Jones' lawyers were told of the development by the clerk of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in a call on Tuesday to request additional documents from the Jones team.

But a Clinton legal source strongly disputes that, saying the court was just trying to get full depositions into the record of Clinton, Jones and Danny Ferguson, an Arkansas state trooper and Clinton co-defendent in the dismissed case.

According to the Clinton source, the Jones legal team is trying to gain leverage in ongoing settlement talks. The source says the appeals court may simply have wanted to read the full deposition transcripts rather than merely rely on the excerpts in the appeals arguments.

But the Jones source says her lawyers were told the judges may be attempting to decide whether Clinton could have obstructed attempts by the Jones legal team to gather facts for the case, also known as "discovery."

Sources from both sides say the clerk contacted attorneys for Clinton and Jones and asked for the transcripts.

The Jones source also says the appeals panel could be considering possible sanctions against the president, should it determine he was not truthful in his testimony under oath in the Jones case.

During the appeals argument last month, the judges raised the issue of whether the case should be returned to District Court Judge Susan Webber Wright to investigate whether the president might have been lying in his testimony.

Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit against the president was dismissed in April but there have been limited settlement talks in the past month.

CNN Correspondent Bob Franken and Senior White House Correspondent Wolf Blitzer contributed to this report


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Thursday, November 12, 1998



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