It was most likely the GETTING CAUGHT that she found painful.
Exactly. What did she think would happen? If you have any integrity at all you refuse the meeting and tell him to get the hell off you plane. Then you go to the press and tell everybody what he tried to do and what you did about it so you save some credibility
Even with all the shame and humiliation already befalling Loretta Lynch, simply because she did not see it coming, in no way excuses what she did subsequently. The right course of action would have been to order Bill Clinton off the plane immediately, but she sat down and listened to his pitch. Worse, she lied later about what was discussed.
Now Slick, we expect him to lie, it is his very lifeblood. But Loretta Lynch listened to his lies, and based her subsequent actions on the lies. Ask Libby Scooter or Martha Steward how that goes. Neither was prosecuted for what they actually did, but for being caught in a lie by Federal agents, for swearing to aspects of the incident that were in conflict with the accepted chain of events.
It is not the crime, but the cover-up, that trips up most criminal activity.