Paula Jones Reportedly to Appeal Dismissal

Paula Corbin Jones decided Wednesday night to appeal a judge’s decision dismissing her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton, a source close to her legal team said.

“The case is alive and vibrant,” added her chief financial backer.

Jones and her lawyers huddled in a series of meetings Wednesday in Dallas to discuss the odds of winning an appeal. An announcement is scheduled there today.

“She’s made the decision to appeal, and unless something changes between now and 2 p.m. tomorrow, that’s the announcement she’ll make,” the source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Wednesday.

“We have a lot of things to look at: What’s the human toll; what’s the financial toll,” Susan Carpenter McMillan, Jones’ advisor and spokeswoman, said earlier Wednesday.

Attorney John Whitehead, head of the Charlottesville, Va.-based Rutherford Institute, the conservative foundation that has been paying expenses in Jones’ civil suit, said he was optimistic about an appeal.

“Do I think the case is alive and vibrant? Yes, it’s alive and vibrant,” Whitehead said. “It’s going to hang in there, and the White House is probably going to be sorry.”

Jones and her husband, Stephen, ducked into and out of the law offices in Dallas on Wednesday without comment to reporters.

Jones, 31, has waged a drawn-out fight against Clinton since she filed a civil suit contending that he asked her to perform a sex act in an Arkansas hotel room when he was governor and she was a state employee.

Clinton has said he does not recall such a meeting and has denied doing anything improper.

In dismissing Jones’ lawsuit April 1 in Little Rock, Ark., Judge Susan Webber Wright said there was not sufficient merit to her allegations to take the case to trial. Wright noted that Jones continued to work at the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission for an additional 19 months and never filed a formal complaint.