NEW YORK (AllPolitics, November 15) -- Paula Jones has claimed victory in her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton, after Clinton's agreement to pay her $850,000 to drop the suit.

"I feel that I have won," she said when asked about the settlement. "I think I have made an impact in the workplace and I do believe that will prevail over any of the other things in the end," she told the syndicated television program "Inside Edition" in a two-part interview to be broadcast Wednesday and Thursday.

Partial transcripts, released Saturday, show Jones at one point in the interview sobbing and storming from the room. She said that if she could speak with Hillary Rodham Clinton, "I would just try to explain to her that, no matter who the man is, nobody can treat you like this and use you and just throw you out the door like some piece of meat."

Jones said she probably won't get the chance to speak with Hillary Clinton because "... She probably hates me."

The settlement does not call for an apology or admission of guilt from the president. It ends a four-year legal battle that spurred impeachment proceedings against him.

Jones is under contract not to speak to other reporters through Nov. 30.

Jones alleged that Clinton, when he was governor of Arkansas and she was a state employee, made a crude advance in a Little Rock hotel room in 1991. Clinton has denied her accusation, and her lawsuit was dismissed last spring. An appeal of that dismissal was pending.

Following the settlement offer, Jones and others had celebratory drinks with real estate tycoon Abe Hirschfeld, who made a separate, $1 million offer to the Jones camp to settle the suit. The president has distanced himself from the Hirschfeld offer.

Clinton attorney Bob Bennett said that settling the Jones case allows an army of White House lawyers to focus exclusively on this week's House impeachment proceedings.

"The president doesn't want to spend one more minute" on the Jones case, Bennett said.

Sunday, November 15, 1998

• Paula Jones: 'I feel I have won'

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