Lawyers in Case of Paula Jones Trade TV Barbs

WASHINGTON — Only days after the Supreme Court ruled the case could go forward, attorneys for President Clinton and the Arkansas woman who has accused him of sexual harassment laid out a litany of seemingly irreconcilable conditions Sunday for settling the complaint.

But even as they did so, the legal combatants appeared to be digging in for continuing negotiations as they exchanged threats of a long, costly and mud-drenched fight if Paula Corbin Jones’ 3-year-old harassment case is taken to court in the midst of Clinton’s second term.

“We’ve thoroughly investigated the case,” said Clinton’s attorney, Robert S. Bennett. “If Paula Jones insists on having her day in court and her trial, and she really wants to put her reputation at issue as we hear, we are prepared to do it.

“I’m prepared to play that one either way, and we’re going to win at the end if we do,” Bennett declared on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.”

Jones’ attorneys counterattacked by promising to seek depositions from individuals who could attest to a “pattern of conduct” in which Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, sought sexual favors from other women, sometimes with the intercession of his security detail.

“We would be looking at the relationships President Clinton has had with other women,” Jones attorney Joseph Cammarata said on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation.”

The two sides waged an unusual, daylong battle on the airwaves, appearing separately in a series of talk-show interviews prompted by Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling that Clinton could be required to respond to Jones’ civil suit while still serving in the White House.

Jones, through her attorneys, demanded an explicit apology from Clinton for allegedly seeking sexual favors in an Arkansas hotel room in 1991. Clinton, through Bennett, “categorically” denied that the exchange, as alleged in Jones’ “malicious complaint,” ever took place.

“I spoke with the president last night, and he said to me, ‘If there is one thing you say on tomorrow’s show, you tell the American people that this did not happen in any manner, shape or form as alleged in this malicious complaint,’ ” Bennett said.

Relaying one of Clinton’s strongest denials to date, Bennett stated: “The president of the United States will say he never touched Paula Jones. But, more importantly, the president of the United States did not touch Paula Jones.”

Bennett also defended Clinton’s decision not to comment on the case directly, saying the president was acting on his lawyer’s advice.

Bennett repeatedly assailed Jones and her attorneys as opportunists bent on reaping lucrative book contracts, movie rights and a rich legal settlement that would humiliate Clinton and demean the presidency.

“This is all about megabucks,” Bennett charged, vowing “no apology, no admission of misconduct, and we’re not going to line her pockets or her lawyers’ pockets, because this is about money.”

Jones’ attorneys, on the other hand, portrayed their client as a victim seeking only to clear her name, even at the risk of becoming a victim again. And they matched Bennett’s threat to pursue potentially embarrassing information by suggesting that they are willing to do the same.

“If the president of the United States wants to beat up on an innocent woman, well, so be it,” Cammarata said on the syndicated “John McLaughlin One on One” program. “It doesn’t answer the question of ‘Mr. President, were you in that hotel room? . . . Did you grope and grab her? . . . Did you drop your pants and underwear and solicit oral sex?’ It answers none of those questions.”

At the same time, the attorneys alluded to areas of potential common ground that could pave the way for a settlement.

On the contentious issue of money, for instance, Clinton’s attorney said he would recommend acceptance of a settlement proposal providing for a donation by the president of $600,000 to $700,000 to a charity of Jones’ choosing.

Such a contribution, plus payment of Jones’ legal fees, would be similar to the terms of an aborted settlement that both sides contemplated when the case first came to light in 1994.

But Jones’ lawyers escalated their demands beyond those considered three years ago. While Jones has said she seeks no financial settlement for herself, they said they would recommend rejection of any out-of-court deal that did not include payment for the emotional pain she has suffered.

Asked why they would cloud Jones’ claims with a new monetary demand, the attorneys suggested that the delays imposed by Clinton’s legal efforts to keep the case from the courts have compounded Jones’ pain and increased her legal bills.

“She’s been through three years of this, and in negotiations, sometimes the price of poker goes up,” Gilbert K. Davis, another attorney representing Jones, said on “Meet the Press.”

On another contentious issue--whether Clinton would submit to a medical examination in connection with the case--the attorneys wavered between conciliation and combat. The issue arises because Jones, in an affidavit her attorneys have referred to but not released, maintains that she could identify a “distinguishing characteristic” located in the president’s genital area.

Jones’ lawyers maintain that if her claim is verified by independent medical examination, it would provide proof that Clinton did as she alleged, dropping his pants and exposing himself to her in search of sexual favors.

Bennett said that if Jones’ attorneys would share the affidavit with Clinton, the two sides might be able to settle on a procedure for determining the veracity of the claim, such as verification by the president’s own doctors. But Bennett categorically ruled out an independent medical examination on terms dictated by Jones’ attorneys.

“I would not permit the president of the United States to be humiliated in the face of the world, to ask the president of the United States to do anything like that,” Bennett said. “I would take that issue to the Supreme Court, and if I can find one above that, I’d do it.”