Willey Denies Tipping Lawyer on Clinton

Documents unsealed Monday from the Paula Corbin Jones lawsuit raise fresh questions about how the name of Kathleen E. Willey--still a wild card in the independent counsel’s investigation of President Clinton--surfaced as Jones’ lawyers sought evidence that Clinton was a womanizer.

The Jones legal team said that in January 1997, an anonymous woman caller told one of their attorneys that “I had a similar thing happen.” Jones had filed a sexual harassment lawsuit alleging that Clinton exposed himself and crudely propositioned her in a Little Rock, Ark., hotel suite in 1991.

But in a September 1997 affidavit, Willey, a former White House volunteer, denied calling Jones’ attorney or relating that Clinton had groped her in a small room just off the Oval Office in 1993.

The sequence of events is important because the mystery of who placed the phone call and why goes to the credibility of a key witness in both the Jones lawsuit and the investigation by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr.

Starr’s office is investigating whether the Clinton White House used a wealthy campaign fund-raiser to persuade Willey not to provide damaging evidence against the president. His ongoing investigation could yet produce criminal indictments.

Willey’s story about an unwanted sexual episode with Clinton also could provide key supporting testimony should an appellate court reinstate Jones’ sexual harassment lawsuit against the president.

The roughly 725 pages of Jones case documents released Monday also show that attorneys for Clinton and Jones fought ferociously over whether the president’s medical records should be turned over. The Jones team was seeking verification of her recollection that the president had a “crooked” penis.

And the Secret Service, asked by Jones’ lawyers for information about Clinton’s conduct, said it was “virtually impossible” to know when Clinton was involved in official business or personal activity.

How Willey’s name first came to the Jones team has been a matter of heated debate for nearly two years.

Joseph Cammarata, one of Jones’ former lawyers, said in a sworn affidavit that he received an unsolicited telephone call from a woman who “I now believe is Kathleen E. Willey.”

He said that when she told him, “I had a similar thing happen,” he began taking notes. He said she described her husband’s legal troubles and how she went to see Clinton in the White House in November 1993, seeking a paying job rather than a volunteer position.

“She met with President Clinton in a private room and informed him that she was ‘afraid of things in her personal life’ and she ‘needed a full-time job,’ ” Cammarata said in his affidavit. “She asked him to help her.

“He said yes, and then ‘it got physical.’ He pulled her to him, kissed her several times and then told her that he ‘always wanted to do that.’ ”

Cammarata continued: “She was ‘shocked.’ He touched her breasts and took her hand and put it on his genital area. He ‘did not expose himself.’ She reciprocated his kisses, but she was both ‘frightened’ and ‘excited.’ ”

Cammarata said that the woman also advised him that she had told a White House employee about the incident--an apparent reference to Linda Tripp, who later came forward with descriptions of seeing Willey disheveled, as well as similar allegations about Monica S. Lewinsky and Clinton.

And, Cammarata said, the woman on the phone told him that her husband “was found dead that night, apparently a suicide.”

Willey’s husband was found dead the night of her alleged encounter with Clinton and details of the encounter described to Cammarata match the account Willey gave earlier this year in a “60 Minutes” interview.

But in her own affidavit, Willey categorically denied making such a phone call.

“I did not call Mr. Cammarata,” she said. “In fact, I have never spoken with Mr. Cammarata.”

Cammarata, in an interview Monday, held his ground. “I believe it was her, despite her denial. As of today, my belief is unchanged.” An attorney close to both parties speculated that a woman who knew the details of Willey’s experience could have phoned Cammarata and posed as Willey “to get Cammarata’s interest.”

“It makes no sense that Willey--if indeed it was her--would give such specific information to Cammarata that it could only be Willey and still would decline to give her name,” said this source, who asked not to be identified.

When the Jones team in the fall of 1997 began seeking her cooperation, Willey vigorously fought a subpoena.

However, she ultimately gave a deposition and later also testified before Starr’s grand jury in the Lewinsky matter.

If true, Willey’s story would tend to support Jones’ claim of a pattern of Clinton preying sexually on subordinates. In 1991, when Jones alleges Clinton harassed her, she was an Arkansas state employee and he was the governor.

Furthermore, Willey’s credibility is a key factor in whether Starr will prevail in seeking criminal charges of influence-peddling by the White House.

According to sources, Starr has been investigating whether Nathan Landow, a wealthy Maryland developer who has made campaign contributions to Vice President Al Gore and has had White House access to Clinton, attempted to intercede and offer Willey incentives to keep silent about the alleged encounter with Clinton in 1993.

The records show that Willey, who denied in her deposition that anyone had spoken to her about her testimony, later amended her answer.

“Nate Landow discussed my upcoming deposition testimony with me,” she said in correcting her earlier testimony. “The reason for the change is a misunderstanding of the original question.”

Landow has denied any improprieties.