President Clinton's lawyer on Monday launched a courtroom strategy that could put resolution of the Paula Jones sex harassment lawsuit off for months or years.
Robert Bennett asked Arkansas federal judge Susan Webber Wright to let him file a motion seeking postponement of the suit until the end of Clinton's presidency.
That motion, which Bennett wants the court to rule on before the lawsuit proceeds, will argue that presidents should be immune from having to answer civil lawsuits during their tenure.
"The president's immunity motion will raise the issues of a complex, constitutional dimension," Bennett said.
Once Bennett files the motion, Wright would have to rule on it. And her ruling, no matter which way it goes, would then probably be appealed - possibly all the way to the Supreme Court, a process that can take a year or more before a final decision.
The immunity question has sparked debate among legal scholars. The Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that presidents are immune from lawsuits for official acts.
But the high court "has never granted immunity to a public official for unofficial acts," says Thomas Jipping of the conservative Free Congress Foundation. "As such, Mr. Clinton enjoys no immunity from Mrs. Jones' suit."
Bennett indicated he would not argue that Clinton has lifetime immunity from the lawsuit.
"Presidents are constitutionally immune from having to litigate private suits for civil damages," said Bennett, mainly because they could lead to a flood of frivolous lawsuits that would distract the president substantially.
Jones claims that while she was an Arkansas state employee in 1991, then-governor Clinton exposed himself and asked her for oral sex in a hotel room. She seeks $ 700,000 in damages from Clinton and from a state trooper who allegedly helped arrange the liaison for Clinton.
"If the case were to proceed to trial," Clinton's legal brief said, "it would be shown - based on the plaintiff's (Jones') own statements . . . as well as other evidence - that the allegations are meritless."
