Jones Case

WASHINGTON -- You might have thought the news media had gone about as far over the ledge as they could with "disclosures" in the sex-and-lies allegations against President Clinton. You might have thought so, but you would have been wrong.Now comes word, culled from more legal documents filed in court by the lawyers of Paula Corbin Jones, of an allegation that Mr. Clinton, while attorney general of Arkansas, may have committed a foul deed against another woman, variously described by news reports as an "assault," a "sexual incident" or even a "rape."

WASHINGTON -- An interesting White House strategy can be gleaned from the actions of President Clinton's attorney, Robert S. Bennett, in dealing with Kathleen Willey, who accused the president in a deposition and then on CBS News' "60 Minutes" of unwanted sexual advances in 1993.Mr. Bennett, in his cross-examination of Ms. Willey made public last week, drew responses that underscored basic differences between her alleged encounter with Mr. Clinton and that of Paula Corbin Jones, who is charging in her civil suit that she suffered financially and psychologically from her meeting with Mr. Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, in Little Rock.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton's lawyers, escalating their public and courtroom battle with Paula Corbin Jones and her attorneys, accused them yesterday of manufacturing evidence to bolster her sexual misconduct case against the president.Responding to the Jones side's outpouring of documents last week accusing Clinton of numerous sexual exploits and of orchestrating a "vast enterprise" to obstruct the case, Clinton's attorneys said most of those documents were intended to "taint" a trial by making it impossible to find an unbiased jury.

WASHINGTON -- In an aggressive new legal assault on President Clinton, lawyers for Paula Corbin Jones accused Clinton and his agents yesterday of repeatedly breaking the law in an effort to scuttle Jones' sexual misconduct lawsuit against him.The most serious allegations -- in a 700-page filing to a federal judge overseeing the Jones case -- parallel those being investigated by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr and a grand jury: "perjury, witness tampering...

WASHINGTON -- Kathleen Willey, a former aide who reportedly has said under oath that President Clinton made an aggressive sexual advance toward her in the White House, testified before a grand jury yesterday in a session of critical importance to the independent counsel's investigation.Willey, 51, may be able to shed light on several aspects of Kenneth W. Starr's complex investigation. One issue is whether Nathan Landow, a wealthy Democratic donor from Maryland, urged Willey to remain silent about her encounter with Clinton if called to testify in Paula Corbin Jones' sexual misconduct case against the president.

WASHINGTON -- After a second day of testifying to a federal grand jury, President Clinton's confidant Vernon Jordan insisted yesterday that his job-hunting effort on behalf of Monica Lewinsky was not a "quid pro quo" for her denial of a sexual relationship with the president."

PRESIDENT Clinton's attorneys recently asked the judge in the Paula Corbin Jones case to move up the trial date, arguing that the case needed the controlled setting of a courtroom, away from "gossip, innuendo and hearsay being passed off as fact."But their aggressive tactics are the last thing the president needs. Instead, the better tactic would be to walk away from the matter tomorrow, by taking immediate steps to get the sordid lawsuit off the front page.How to do this? The president would simply tell his attorneys to stop defending the case.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton and his lawyers are dealing with two significant legal challenges -- both aimed at him personally. One is a criminal investigation by Whitewater independent prosecutor Kenneth W. Starr. The other is a sexual misconduct lawsuit filed by former Arkansas state employee Paula Corbin Jones.Each has continued for about three years, and until lately they were totally independent. Now, they seem closely linked and this week actually overlapped. The Sun's legal reporter Lyle Denniston assesses the implications.

WASHINGTON -- It is, some say, inevitable: Any lawyer who has the president of the United States as a client is bound to perform two roles -- one legal, the other political. A new maneuver yesterday by one of President Clinton's attorneys seemed to prove that adage.The lawyer, Robert S. Bennett, filed a short -- barely five pages -- but aggressively worded motion in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual misconduct case that he used as a vehicle not merely to gain a legal advantage, but to make political points as well.

WASHINGTON -- As the White House struggled yesterday to contain an escalating controversy, President Clinton's close friend Vernon E. Jordan Jr. insisted that former White House intern Monica Lewinsky had told him "in no uncertain terms" that she did not have a sexual relationship with Clinton.Jordan, a high-powered Washington lawyer, also vehemently denied allegations that he and the president had instructed the young woman to lie under oath about any affair with the president."At no time did I ever say, suggest or intimate to her that she should lie," Jordan said in a statement he read at a session with reporters at which he took no questions.