Legal Watch - Page A4
November 14, 1996 PRESIDENT CLINTON SEEKS SUPREME COURT DELAY IN SEXUAL ASSAULT CASE!
Doesn't Deny Sexual Assault, But Wants Justice to Wait intil Year 2001
by Staff Journalists, The Daily Republican NewspaperRelated Story:
- The American Lawyer Magazine
WASHINGTON BUREAU - Charges of sexual assault in a lawsuit filed by Paula Corbin Jones have been temporarily side-tracked. However, president Bill Clinton's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to be denied as soon as January 9th. The evidence supporting Paula Jones's allegations of predatory and depraved sexual behavior by president Bill Clinton is very strong and president Clinton's appeal is not meritorious.
The American Lawyer media reported that Jones' case presents relevant evidence, in clear and convincing proof. It started when president Clinton was still governor of Arkansas. While Governor he directed a state trooper assigned to him, to go into a state office building. There the state trooper was to interrupt the work of Paula Corbin Jones.
That was on May 8, 1991. Clinton had the state trooper take Jones to the Excelsior Hotel,in Little Rock Arkansas. There, Clinton was waiting in a private room. He confronted Jones instructing her to perform an oral sex act upon him.
The relevant evidence also includes strongly corroborative statements by two of Jones's friends, complete with tellingly detailed, seamy specifics - some never published until now - that are remarkably consistent with Jones's allegations about what happened inside that suite.
The friends relate how an extremely upset Jones had told one of them within ten minutes of the event, and the other within 90 minutes, that Clinton had suddenly exposed himself and demanded oral sex after Jones had rebuffed his efforts to grope her.
One of these women, Pamela Blackard, also witnessed the trooper's approach to Jones and her departure to and return from Clinton's hotel room.
Both have said that, on the basis of Jones' detailed descriptions and distraught demeanor that day, they are convinced that she was telling the truth. They both signed sworn affidavits for Jones in 1994.
Blackard and the other woman, Debra Ballentine, first told their stories in February 1994 in exclusive interviews to reporter Michael Isikoff, then of The Washington Post.
To Isikoff's embarrassment, the Post printed only sketchy fragments of their accounts, 11 weeks later. Blackard's and Ballentine's detailed, previously unpublished stories provide far stronger corroboration for Jones's allegations than anyone could know from reports by the Post or any other major news organization.
President Clinton has never publicly answered nor denied that he had Jones brought to his hotel room by the state trooper. Even the president's personal attorney, Robert Bennett, has not specifically denied any of Jones' factual allegations. Bennett has instead, made a number of admissions like 'nothing happened in that hotel.'
Instead of confronting the relevant evidence, Bennett has been making the unprecedented asserting that president Clinton is immune from any law suit by Jones. Bennett claim that the U.S.Constitution bars law suits in 'personal damages litigation against an incumbent president'. Bennett's agrement has been rejected by the federal district and appellate courts.
By simply filing the Supreme Court appeal on 'immunity' grounds, president Clinton has been able to obtain interim orders blocking Jones from taking depositions from witnesses.
That would also include president Clinton, the trooper-bodyguard who admitted he escorted Jones to Clinton's room at Clinton's direction, and from Jones other witnesses.
President Clinton's defense strategy has been an egregious abuse of the powers of the office of the president. But the delay has played well in Democrat Part politics.
Major news reports and commentaries about Jones have tended to ignore the convincing proof of Jones' corroborating witnesses and other powerful evidence.
Absent from Jones' list of supporters are those feminist groups who rallied quickly for Anita Hill at a Senate hearing for Anita Hill, and then in opposition to Clarence Thomas' appointment to the Supreme Court.
In view of the delay and the media campaign against Jones, the American Lawyer magazine presented an in-depth analysis of the evidence for and against Jones' claims.
The American Lawyer magazine account presents the sequence of events starting with the 1994 American Spectator magazine article that caused Jones to break her silence about Clinton's alleged sexual harassment.
It depicts president Clinton's attempt at the last minute to squelch the $700,000 sexual harassment lawsuit through long- distance telephone negotiations and Bennett's repeated appearances on Larry King Live.
American Lawyer reports that the accrued fees and costs of president Clinton's lawyers, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom to be more than $2 million already, triple the $700,000 in damages sought by the Paula Jones complaint.
These fees bring the total accrued fees and costs of president Clinton's four private law firms to about $5 million.
Bennett was recommended to the president and Hillary Clinton months before, by Harold Ickes, a top White House official whom Bennett had represented in connection with the Whitewater investigation.
Jones's allegations charge Clinton with grossly depraved conduct. These came after so many other allegations against president Clinton of fraud, perjury, and other wrongdoing swirling around the Clintons.
Bennett, a partner in the Washington office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom had a standard billing rate was $475 an hour in mid-1994. The American Lawyer magazine has reported that even with no discovery and no trial, to date, Skadden's accrued fees and costs for the Paula Jones case may well have mounted above $2 million already.
The American Lawyer media obtained the estimate from public reports by the Presidential Legal Expense Trust, which the Bill and Hillary Clinton created in June 1994, after the Paula Corbin Jones civil suit had been filed.
'The most recent reports state that in December 1995, the insurers paid Skadden $891,880 on total billings of $1,048,707 for services rendered from May 1994 through September 30, 1995. The $156,827 that had not been paid, according to the trust's reports, apparently included some or all of Bennett's billings for his many hours defending the president on television and in interviews with reporters.'
Assuming the American Lawyer magazine estimates are realistic, president Clinton is incurring more than $60,000 every month for legal defense against Paula Corbin Jones.
That makes it close to $2.0 millions annually for legal costs up to the time president Clinton's immunity claim is heard. When that claim is rejected by the Supreme Court on January 9, 1997. There would, in addition to those fees, be extraordinary costs for seeking rehearing after the January 9th rejection and for petitioning for Supreme Court review; and further briefing the case on the merits.
The American Lawyer magazine estimates the legal fees and costs of the Clintons' four private law firms is about $5 million, adding Skadden's fees to the estimated $3 million accrued by Washington's Williams & Connolly, the Clintons' main law firm, and $77,000 accrued by two Little Rock firms that have helped out in the Whitewater, Paula Jones, and other matters.
The Williams & Connolly estimate was computed as follows: The trust's most recent public report shows the firm's billings came to $2,352,266 (as of June 30) for services rendered through April 30, 1996. The trust's reports show that the firm's average for services rendered for the six months ending April 30 were about $120,000 per month.
If the fees and costs have continued accruing at the same rate for the six months ending October 31, that would bring the total above $3 million. Assuming a more conservative $100,000 a month for the past six months - in light of the windup of the Senate Whitewater investigation this spring - would bring Williams & Connolly down to between $2.9 million and $3 million.
To date, the Clintons' legal defense fund has reported making payments of only $691,134 on the Bill and Hillary's huge legal debt, with a cash balance of only $141,932 as of June 30. The trust has had difficulty raising money - in part because it chose to limit donors to a maximum of $1,000 a year.
Also, because it has yielded to the opinion of the Office of Government Ethics that it could not actively solicit contributions and has stopped accepting money from lobbyists after the president drew criticism for doing so.
Paula Corbin Jones has no funds with which to pay her attorneys.