Now It's Her Turn

By John Cloud

President Clinton has one chance left to avoid the embarrassment of becoming the first sitting President to star in his own courtroom drama. Led by Robert Bennett, his lawyers have asked Judge Susan Webber Wright to dismiss Paula Jones' case. They say that while Jones' claim began with a single thread--that then Governor Clinton harmed her in 1991, when he allegedly exposed himself and asked for sex in a hotel room--it has since been embroidered into a garish tapestry of ancillary allegations intended to mortify. This week Jones' lawyers will respond to the motion and in doing so will offer the clearest picture yet of their strategy.

It won't be pretty. Jones' lawyers believe that Bennett has waged a nasty p.r. war against them and that it's time for payback. They will probably quote at length from Clinton's deposition, in which he is said to have finally admitted having sex (just once) with Gennifer Flowers. On the merits, Jones is alleging two kinds of sexual harassment. First, she says the President's proposition "impose[d] a hostile work environment" on her. The idea behind such a claim is that sexual advances and physical touching--if unwanted and "severe or pervasive" enough--are discriminatory. Given these general terms, just about anything can count, but could Clinton's one-time proposition (which he denies) in itself create a hostile environment? Bennett says no, in part because Clinton never forced himself on Jones or prevented her from leaving.

But Jones now offers a more sinister version of the encounter. Building on her original complaint, she says Clinton tried to grope her crotch and then briefly blocked the door. Jones' lawyers may contend this week, for the first time, that such behavior amounts to assault. They will argue that the incident was "severe" enough--and that Clinton was powerful enough--to create a "hostile environment." Her lawyers will have a hard time finding cases that build a precedent for the single-incident theory, but it is embedded in the harassment guidelines of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: "a single unwelcome physical advance can seriously poison the victim's working environment," they say. Is a poisoned environment a hostile environment? That's up to a jury.

The other kind of sexual harassment, which is more difficult to prove, is quid pro quo harassment. "Quid pro quo" is Latin for "Sleep with me or clean out your desk." Jones isn't saying that Clinton threatened to fire her if she didn't "kiss it," but her lawyers are expected to argue that the atmosphere in the state office where she worked turned chilly after she said no. Clintonites chuckle over an example she offered in her deposition--that she didn't get Secretary's Day flowers.

But she will offer other examples too. Her boss wasn't as friendly. Someone moved her desk so her supervisor "could watch me at all times." She was given less to do. Though Bennett has records showing that Jones received raises and a promotion after the alleged incident, she is likely to say that she peeked at colleagues' paychecks and saw that they were bigger than hers. She will also say that Clinton implicitly threatened retaliation when he allegedly asked her to keep the incident quiet and when a state trooper later asked about her husband by name, even though she had never mentioned him.

Most explosively, her lawyers plan to say Jones doesn't even have to prove she was mistreated so long as she can show the inverse: that other women were given favorable treatment after they "succumbed" to Clinton's advances. The two examples are Gennifer Flowers (who got a state job) and Kathleen Willey (who reportedly has said President Clinton kissed and fondled her in 1993 and who later traveled on foreign junkets and got a job on the USO board).

What's suspicious about some of these arguments is that they have appeared only recently. Judge Wright may view them as lawyerly confections designed to bolster a weak case. But Jones' lawyers have presented enough factual quarrels with Bennett's motion (such as the pay-raise issue) that Wright probably can't dismiss the suit.

For the Jones team, the May 27 trial would come none too soon. Last week the right-leaning groups backing Jones looked more like bratty children than cogs in a well-oiled conspiracy machine. John Whitehead, who runs the Rutherford Institute, the legal foundation bankrolling her lawsuit, complains that another group, the Paula Jones Legal Fund, is siphoning away fund-raising cash. "The fund implies it's going to pay the lawyers," he says, but the money actually pays for Jones' expenses, including her makeover and clothes (more than $4,000), phone bills and savings for the $800,000 lien held by her previous attorneys. Whitehead, who took the case to raise his institute's profile, expects to lose money on Jones. Rutherford has written letters of protest to the fund and to Bruce Eberle, a direct-mail fund raiser working for the fund.

Meanwhile, some conservatives are attacking Rutherford for what they say is his move toward the left. Two Christian radio networks have announced plans to drop Rutherford's daily radio spots; other groups have complained about Whitehead's sympathetic views toward gays. But with a trial now virtually certain, it's small comfort for Clinton that his tormentors are bickering among themselves.

--Reported by Jay Branegan and Margaret Carlson/Washington

With reporting by Jay Branegan and Margaret Carlson/Washington