Clinton settles sexual harassment suit, Nov. 14, 1998 (paid $850,000)

 

 

 

This Day in Politics

Clinton settles sexual harassment suit, Nov. 14, 1998

 

 

Paula Jones (left), seen here on Roseanne Barr’s TV show in November 1998, said years later of her lawsuit: “I think it’s probably made it a lot better for women in the workplace because of what happened with my case.” | Kevork Djansezian/AP Photo

By Andrew Glass

11/14/2018 12:00 AM EST 

 

On this day in 1998, President Bill Clinton settled a sexual harassment lawsuit by making an $850,000 payment. The settlement with Paula Jones, reached without the suit going to trial, heaped fuel on Clinton’s impeachment proceedings by the Republican-controlled House. (He was acquitted in a subsequent Senate trial and completed his term in office.)

In the aftermath of the settlement payment, most of which went to Jones’ attorneys, Robert S. Bennett, Clinton’s attorney, maintained that Jones’ claim was baseless, and that Clinton agreed to settle only to end the lawsuit and move on.

According to Jones’ account, on May 8, 1991, when Clinton was serving as governor of Arkansas, state troopers escorted Jones, a low-level state employee, to Clinton’s room in Little Rock’s Excelsior Hotel (now the Little Rock Marriott), where he propositioned her and exposed himself.

Jones said she kept quiet about what had happened until 1994, when The American Spectator, a right-wing magazine, published an account of the alleged encounter by David Brock. Jones filed a sexual harassment suit against Clinton on May 6, 1994, two days before the expiration of the three-year statute of limitations.

In a deposition taken in Jones’ suit, Clinton, testifying under oath, was asked whether he had ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern. He denied it. Subsequently, he was accused in the House impeachment proceedings of having lied under oath — after incontrovertible evidence surfaced confirming sexual contacts between the president and Lewinsky.

The lawsuit also triggered a landmark legal precedent by the Supreme Court, which ruled that a sitting president is not exempt from civil litigation for acts committed outside of public office.

Jones, who in 2016 had endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy, was interviewed in 2017 by reporter David Friend for Vanity Fair magazine. He asked her whether, if she had to do it all over again, she would go through with the lawsuit.

“Yes,” Jones replied, “because I’m who I am today because of it. I’m a stronger person. I was a very, very introverted, shy, quiet, submissive-type person before all this. [In addition], it has made a lot of key laws. Like, for instance, if somebody files a lawsuit about sexual harassment in the workplace, they’re going to go get my case. I think it’s probably made it a lot better for women in the workplace because of what happened with my case.”

Friend noted that “Jones is aware she was a pawn in multiple games.” “My lawyers,” she told him, spurred her “to do certain things that they wanted me to do and it’s almost like they were pushing me. They were using me for their own agenda. … Both sides were using me.” She continued: “Then, when I posed for Penthouse — Lord, I was a heathen! Oh, I couldn’t have been a Christian — that’s what so many people thought.”

SOURCE: “THIS DAY IN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORY,” BY PAUL BRANDUS

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• Monica Lewinsky,
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