Today the poor girl is unrecognizable.
Witness:
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Posted on 05/02/2004 8:04:54 AM PDT by HAL9000
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Paula Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit, filed 10 years ago this week alleging Bill Clinton made an indecent proposal to her, sparked a sex probe that threatened to topple Clinton's presidency.
Jones sued Clinton in federal court May 6, 1994, alleging that he exposed himself and propositioned her three years earlier, when she was a state worker and he was governor, at what is now the Peabody Hotel in downtown Little Rock, a few blocks from where a $160 million library complex is being built to enshrine the former president's legacy.
Clinton denied the allegations.
Jones' claims forced one of the biggest sex scandals of the 20th century and eventually led to the first presidential impeachment in 168 years.
Jones declined repeated requests to comment for this article. A spokeswoman for Clinton said he had no comment.
In a 2000 appearance on CNN's "Larry King Live," Jones said she was never out to hurt Clinton, but to prove that her allegations against him were true "because it did hurt me."
"I don't regret it," she said at the time. "It has opened up ... something big for women in the workplace, about sexual harassment, so I don't have any regrets about it."
The consequences of her lawsuit — the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Clinton's impeachment, "that's Bill Clinton's problem," she said.
One historian says Jones' role in the historic events has been reduced to that of bit player.
"She was an important actor early on, but in the second and third acts, she was replaced by Monica Lewinsky," said Leo Riuffo, history professor at George Washington University.
A lawyer who represented Jones through much of her lawsuit against Clinton said Jones helped reinforce the defining legal principle of the American justice system, winning a U.S. Supreme Court decision that she could pursue her civil suit while Clinton was still in office.
"What the unanimous Supreme Court decision has underscored is that we are all equal before the bar of justice, Washington lawyer Joseph Cammarata said. "You have a woman, a mother, who sues a sitting president and the Supreme Court says that she's just as important as the president of the United States as far as her access to justice."
Clinton's lawyer in the Jones case, Washington lawyer Robert Bennett, said the Supreme Court decision could cause future peril for the nation.
"Their decision in that case has put into jeopardy every sitting U.S. president," Bennett said. "They can be brought into litigation matters and can be distracted from their job of protecting the country. We were very fortunate that we had a president who had the ability to stick to the job."
It was Clinton's sexual improprieties in the Oval Office with Lewinsky, then a White House intern, and the admittedly evasive and misleading testimony about the affair that he gave under oath in Jones' lawsuit, that led to his impeachment on perjury and obstruction of justice charges.
A Senate trial that began in January 1999 left Clinton absolved but his presidency tainted.
A year earlier, Clinton had testified in the Jones lawsuit and denied having a sexual relationship with Lewinsky. He did so publicly days later, declaring, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman. ... I never told anybody to lie."
But on Aug. 17, after undergoing more than four hours of questioning before a grand jury, Clinton admitted in a humiliating televised speech to the nation, "I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky that was not appropriate."
In between, a federal judge threw out Jones' lawsuit. While the decision was on appeal, and as the sex scandal fueled political consequences, Clinton agreed to an $850,000 settlement with Jones that included no apology or admission of guilt.
The settlement came just over a month before the House approved impeachment articles charging him with perjury and obstruction of justice.
The Senate impeachment trial began Jan. 7, 1999, and the Senate voted to acquit the president Feb. 12. Clinton told the nation he was "profoundly" sorry for his actions.
"The president brought it all upon himself," Cammarata said last week.
"It was well known what our approach was going to be," seeking evidence of other instances of sexual misconduct by Clinton," he said, "and yet he undertakes to have a relationship with Monica Lewinsky in the White House. I don't know what he was thinking.
"He put himself in a position to lie, lie lie. It just caught up with him."
In the summer of 2000, the Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct began disbarment proceedings against Clinton in Arkansas. Clinton struck a deal with Whitewater prosecutors just before leaving office to avoid indictment. As part of the deal, he accepted a five-year suspension of his law license and a $25,000 fine.
Meanwhile, Jones, now, 37, had fallen on tough times.
She said later that attorneys fees swallowed up most of the money from her settlement with Clinton. She and her husband of eight years, Steven Jones, divorced in 1999 and Jones moved from California back to Cabot, Ark., her hometown, with their two sons.
Within months, she posed nude for Penthouse magazine, telling interviewers that she went back on a vow not to pose for men's magazines to secure her children's future and pay back taxes she owed.
She married a neighbor, construction equipment company worker Steven Mark McFadden, in October 2001. Sixteen months later, she was pummeled by banished figure-skater Tonya Harding in a Fox TV special, "Celebrity Boxing."
She now lives in a quiet, upscale subdivision in Cabot, a bedroom community about 25 miles northeast of Little Rock.
Since leaving office, Clinton has traveled the world and makes speeches for as much as $100,000 an appearance. The former president is completing his memoirs, for which he was reportedly paid $10 million to $12 million.
His presidential library complex is scheduled to open on Little Rock's riverfront in November.
Designer Ralph Applebaum of New York said last year that impeachment would get the same treatment at the library as the other major themes of Clinton's presidency.
Skip Rutherford, head of the foundation that is building the library, said no decision has been made on how the Jones factor will play there.
If I was being objective and non-political, I would have to ask why she should receive any money because someone made an "indecent proposal" to her. The correct response is to slap him across the face and walk away.
We conservatives have always rightly opposed the sexual harassment witch hunt and we oppose frivolous lawsuits. There isn't much to admire about this case.
I can't even begin to comment on the stupidity of this quote.
Clinton would have gotten away whith the whole scandal if he didn't "stick" to the blue dress.
How many women now living within commuting distance of the Library of Shame could have come forward with key testimony but were too terrifired?
Isn't it amazing that he still has unquestioning support from NOW and the other feminist groups.
No president is in jeopardy who conducts himself with the dignity due the office of the president...Clinton stuck (it) to the job alright.
A Senate trial that began in January 1999 left Clinton absolved but his presidency tainted.
Tainted? Tainted?...more like totally putrefied and corrupted!
Today the poor girl is unrecognizable.
Witness:
Before:
After:
No, but it might keep the riff-raff out... Shucks, it didn't work, Kerry's running.
Another El Slicko story in the news today. Talk about a legacy for slicko, just grab a handful of cigars, a few porno mags and a failed attempt to stop terrorism.
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