Clinton Lawyers Seek Delay in Jones Lawsuit

President Clinton’s lawyers asked a federal judge Monday to delay and possibly stop depositions in Paula Corbin Jones’ sexual harassment lawsuit, contending the questioning is meant only to harass Clinton.

Three former Clinton bodyguards and a high school classmate are among those scheduled to be interviewed by Jones’ lawyers.

“This discovery clearly is not intended to obtain admissible evidence, nor is it likely to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence, but rather is designed to harass and embarrass the president,” Clinton lawyer Robert S. Bennett wrote to the judge in the case.

Former Clinton classmate Dolly Kyle Browning is to give a deposition today in Dallas. Bennett wants U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright to stop that deposition and four others set next week.

Bennett said he would file a motion by Friday supporting his request, but he included some of his arguments in papers filed with the court Monday.

The judge did not rule on the matter.

Jones’ Dallas lawyers did not immediately return calls seeking comment. Her spokeswoman, Susan Carpenter McMillan, said Bennett’s request was hypocritical because of what she described as sometimes “grueling and horrible” questioning of others that Jones sat through during recent depositions.

According to court papers, Jones’ lawyers have asked troopers L.D. Brown, Larry Patterson and Roger Perry for documents relating to “any woman other than Hillary Rodham Clinton with whom defendant Clinton had sexual relations when he was attorney general or governor of the state of Arkansas.”

A fourth deposition next week is scheduled with Marvin Samuel Jones, a partner at the Wright Jennings Lindsey law firm, where Clinton worked in 1981 and 1982, when he was out of state government.

In her $700,000 lawsuit, Jones alleges that Clinton summoned her to a Little Rock hotel room, exposed himself and asked her for oral sex in May 1991. He was Arkansas governor and she was a state employee. Clinton has denied the allegations and said he does not recall meeting Jones.