Racy Documents Released in Paula Jones Case

With lawyers for President Clinton and Paula Corbin Jones returning to court today to argue whether her sexual harassment lawsuit should be reinstated, a federal court in Little Rock on Monday began releasing hundreds of pages of sealed documents that show both sides making an issue of the sexual history of the other.

Originally asked by Jones’ attorneys if he ever had sex with a woman other than his wife, Clinton protested that the question was too broad. He eventually swore in writing that he had not had “sexual relations” with any female employee of the federal government or the state of Arkansas since 1986, the time period stipulated by the judge.

However, Clinton since has admitted having an “inappropriate relationship” with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky.

Another document details an episode in which Jones allegedly met a man in a bar and gave him oral sex just months before her alleged encounter with Clinton.

The president’s lawyers brought up that episode to suggest that it was this incident--rather than her alleged encounter with Clinton--that truly left her “emotionally traumatized.”

Taken together, the documents released Monday--just a fraction of the total caseload of material--reveal years’ worth of legal wrangling over such matters as what information certain individuals would have to produce, the handling of Jones’ legal defense fund and, not least, sexual matters.

For example, the opposing sides spent considerable time arguing over whether Clinton’s doctors should be forced to submit to questions from Jones’ lawyers “concerning any surgery or medical procedure on the genitalia” of the president.

U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright finally ordered that “distinguishing characteristics” of the president’s genitalia were not relevant to Jones’ lawsuit because she could have been told about them, rather than seeing them.

Monday’s release on the Internet of 700 pages of documents in the Jones case is the first of several weekly releases ordered by Wright. Some material from the case was released previously.

She dismissed the case in April, saying Jones had not proven that Clinton threatened or intimidated her in her capacity as a state employee after she allegedly refused his sexual advances in a Little Rock hotel room in 1991.

The Jones lawyers appealed the dismissal, and today the attorneys for both camps will square off before a panel of the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Paul, Minn.

Last-Minute Settlement Appears Unlikely

Attempts by both sides to reach an 11th-hour settlement in the case appeared to have broken down Monday evening. On Sunday, Clinton’s lawyers rejected a new demand by Jones for a total of $2 million, with half of that to come from the president and the other $1 million offered by New York real estate magnate Abe Hirschfeld.

The president’s denial that he had had sexual relations with women employed by the state or federal governments came in response to written questions.

The Jones lawyers were allowed by Wright to ask Clinton whether he had had “sexual relations” with any employees dating back to 1986, or five years before the alleged incident at the Excelsior Hotel.

Clinton, in a one-word response dated last Dec. 23, said: “None.”

The following month, the president was deposed by Jones’ lawyers and denied, under oath, having had sexual relations with Lewinsky. In August, after testifying before a federal grand jury, Clinton admitted that he had indeed had an “inappropriate relationship” with the intern.

Other material that could be problematic for the president included references to a deposition by Dolly Kyle Browning, a high school friend of Clinton’s.

According to a motion filed by Jones’ lawyers, “Browning testified that she had an ongoing and continuous sexual relationship with Mr. Clinton for many years . . . and that during the course of this relationship Mrs. Browning confronted Mr. Clinton with his sexual habit problem.”

The motion continued: “Mrs. Browning testified that she reviewed with Mr. Clinton the several Alcoholics-Anonymous-type criteria for determining sexual addiction and Mr. Clinton responded affirmatively to having all of those indicia and further responded that he might well be a sex addict.”

In another document, a Florida lawyer advised the judge that he had obtained “shocking information” from a Clinton attorney about the president’s “sexual exploits.”

John B. Thompson stated that Sam Jones, a former attorney for Clinton, had told him in early 1992 of “certain shocking information . . . about his client’s [Clinton’s] sexual exploits that is highly germane in corroborating Ms. Jones’ allegations.”

Thompson said that Sam Jones told him his job was to track down women who had relationships with Clinton and to discourage them from going public--even paying money for their silence.

Thompson said that the lawyer described Clinton as “pathological in his desire for women. The man has got to have it.”

But Sam Jones submitted his own affidavit saying that the Thompson statement was “untrue.”

Thompson, who in 1988 ran unsuccessfully against Janet Reno, now attorney general, in her bid for reelection as Dade County, Fla., state’s attorney, has been a sharp critic of the Clinton administration.

In material that attacks the Jones case, Clinton’s lawyers, led by Robert S. Bennett, cited the deposition of Michael King, who told of meeting Jones in a bar and said that she “willingly engaged in sexual conduct with him in his car in the bar parking lot” that evening.

King, who was not otherwise identified and who could not be located Monday, testified that he met her again at the bar a few weeks later and that she “initiated oral sex with him.”

The Clinton team said that King’s sworn statements “would certainly be relevant as potential rebuttal testimony should [Jones] assert at any trial that she was an innocent minister’s daughter or that she was unfamiliar with oral sex.”

Bennett said that King’s account could challenge Jones’ contention that she was emotionally traumatized by Clinton’s alleged request that she perform oral sex on him and that it disrupted her relationship with her then-fiance, Stephen Jones, who is now her husband.

Jones Legal Fund Called Into Question

The Clinton lawyers also raised a series of pointed questions about the Paula Jones Legal Fund and how its money was spent.

In July 1997, the fund was moved from Washington to Southern California. Susan Carpenter-McMillan, Jones’ friend and spokeswoman, was questioned by Clinton’s lawyers but provided little information.

She testified that the fund “operated out of a room in her house for approximately two months, that she was appointed ‘chairperson’ of the fund and signed blank checks for the account but that she had no authority over the fund and no idea how the money from the fund was disbursed,” Bennett said in legal papers.

In public comments, Bennett has suggested that Jones used money from the fund for personal expenses.

Carpenter-McMillan could not reached for comment.

Times staff writer David G. Savage contributed to this story.