Jones Vows to Continue Fight With Clinton

Delicately dabbing at her tears with a finger, her nails lacquered pink, Paula Corbin Jones, the country’s most famous sexual harassment plaintiff, told a room full of reporters Thursday that she intends to continue to press her case against President Clinton by filing an appeal of a federal court decision dismissing her lawsuit.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her soft, high-pitched voice wavering as she stood at a podium in the downtown Fairmont Hotel, explaining how she felt about the dismissal of the suit two weeks ago. “I was shocked because I believed what Mr. Clinton did to me was wrong and that the law protects women who are subjected to that kind of abuse of power.”

Jones has waged a prolonged fight against Clinton since she filed a civil suit in 1994 claiming he dropped his trousers and asked for oral sex during a 1991 hotel encounter in Little Rock, Ark., when he was governor and she was an employee of a state agency. The president has denied the incident occurred.

Jones, who has lived in Long Beach for the last four years, said that after consulting with her attorneys she had decided to go ahead with an appeal.

“Despite the continuing personal strain on my family and me, in the end, I have not come this far to see the law let men who have done such things dodge their responsibility,” said Jones, who had remained silent since U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright ruled on April 1 that the lawsuit did not merit a trial.

Jones, 31, got only three sentences into the prepared statement she was reading when she stopped, twitched her nose and blinked in an attempt to hold back the tears. Then, flanked by her informal spokeswoman, Susan Carpenter-McMillan, and her husband, Stephen, who were seated, Jones stood for an agonizing 40 seconds in forlorn silence by herself.

John Whitehead, attorney and president of the conservative Rutherford Institute, which is funding the legal expenses of the case, stared straight ahead. Donovan Campbell, the lead attorney of a six-member Dallas law firm handling the case since September, sat with his jaw tightly set. Then Jones’ husband rose and stood beside his wife, with his arm around her, and stayed at her side until she finished her statement and gave the podium to Campbell.

During the press conference, the buttoned-down Campbell told reporters Jones and her legal advisors were appealing because “we do not think that the law permits a male supervisor to expose himself to his female subordinates and ask for sexual favors.”

In Washington, Clinton’s attorney, Robert S. Bennett, said in a written statement: “We are confident that the appellate court will not permit Paula Jones and her supporters to pursue this case.” Clinton, making a state visit to Chile, repeatedly declined to answer reporters’ questions about Jones’ announcement.

Campbell pointedly criticized Wright’s opinion that even if Clinton did what he was accused of, it was a single incident and thus did not result in physical or psychological harm to Jones.

“There is no one-free-flash rule recognized in the law,” he said.

Another member of Jones’ Dallas-based legal team, David Pyke, said a notice of appeal will be filed “soon” with the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, which sits in St. Louis. That will begin what is expected to be a tedious, uphill battle to get an appeals court to remand the case back to a lower court. Campbell estimated it will take six months to a year to get an answer from the appeals court. Still, if the case goes to trial, the president may already have concluded his second term in office.

“We frankly don’t care if he’s president of the United States or busing tables at Luby’s Cafeteria when this lawsuit comes to trial,” said Campbell in answer to the ever-present speculation that Jones’ lawsuit is just a political attempt to embarrass the president.

Rumors had flown all morning that the decision to go ahead with an appeal was the conclusion of contentious debate about how to meld into one voice the meticulously careful Donovan Campbell, the irreverent and talkative Susan Carpenter-McMillan and the shy Paula Corbin Jones, among others.

It had been speculated that the answer was simply to tamp down the voice of Carpenter-McMillan, a Los Angeles victims-rights advocate who has acted as a fiercely loyal friend and casual advisor to Jones, frequently making the rounds of talk shows to defend Jones and her cause.

Although Carpenter-McMillan has repeatedly said she is not Jones’ spokeswoman, she has become the de facto voice in the absence of Jones’ public comments.

However, when it came time to announce their decision Thursday afternoon, the Jones team presented a united front. Carpenter-McMillan said she was definitely still on board and that the law firm would act as a “clearinghouse” in coordinating media appearances for Jones’ advocates.

Campbell added that the final decision to appeal was Jones’ and was not reached until Wednesday evening in Dallas.

While Carpenter-McMillan and the attorneys were available to reporters after the press conference, Jones and her husband were hustled out of the hotel meeting room and unavailable.

Jones wore a gray-blue pantsuit, her long brown hair lightened and streaked with blond.

Jones turned down a $700,000 settlement offer from Clinton’s attorneys last fall. Asked if they would accept a settlement now, Campbell said he would consider it but added, “The problem in this case is there haven’t been any rational settlement offers from the other side.”

The renewal of the legal battle comes at a time when the Joneses appear to have no personal source of income. Stephen Jones recently lost his job as a Northwest Airlines ticket agent in a dispute over mandatory overtime. Paula Jones has not worked outside the home since she came to Long Beach, instead being a full-time mother to two small children.