Paula Corbin Jones, who filed a sexual harassment suit last month against President Clinton, denies she's a pawn of conservatives and says that even if she inflicts mortal political damage on Clinton, she has no second thoughts.
In an interview this week, Jones, surrounded by her lawyers and leaders of her legal defense fund, said she understands that many in the public doubt her motives as well as her story.
"But they don't know until they are in my shoes. I don't know if people can imagine a strange person . . . plus being the governor, dropping his pants. It's like being raped mentally."
Said Jones of Clinton: "He's responsible. . . . If he's found guilty and if that's what he has to pay, to not be president any more, I guess that's his way of paying for what he's done."
Jones, a former Arkansas state employee, filed a $ 700,000 suit charging that Clinton, when he was governor of Arkansas, sexually harassed her in 1991 in a Little Rock hotel room.
Clinton, through his lawyers, has denied the incident.
Arkansas state trooper Danny Ferguson, also named in the suit as approaching her about meeting Clinton, confirmed in court papers last week that Clinton did meet Jones, though he had no idea of what transpired.
But Ferguson also said Jones pushed him for the meeting and later asked him how much money she could make by going public.
-- Jones, in the interview, denied Ferguson's contentions.
She said when she ran into Ferguson at a North Little Rock steak house earlier this year, he apologized profusely for describing the incident with Clinton to a reporter from the American Spectator magazine. Jones said that story spurred her to go public.
-- She said Ferguson at that meeting showed no love lost for his old boss. "Talking about Bill Clinton, he said, 'You know what kind of man he is.' "
Ferguson and other former members of Clinton's security detail have charged that Clinton participated in numerous extramarital affairs, often with their help. The White House has called those charges ridiculous.
Also in the interview:
-- Jones repeated her pledge to donate money she received from the suit, beyond her legal fees, to charity.
But she pointedly would not extend that pledge to cover any possible revenue from book or television deals.
"I don't even know that I would do that," she said of selling book or TV rights. "I'm not thinking about that."
-- She said she regretted making her first statements about the alleged incident at a conservative conference, but said she has no political agenda. "I didn't know anything about what a conservative was or a liberal was. . . . I didn't know nothing about politics."
An array of conservative activists are raising money for Jones' defense.
She said that after the alleged incident she "was not given the privileges or the raises that my peers were given" and was discouraged to apply for promotions. "I felt like I was being punished," Jones said.
In her suit, however, Jones says she never received a raise beyond a cost-of-living increase. State records show she got a 2.5% merit raise in 1992 and also received two cost-of-living increases after the alleged incident.
She said she waited nearly three years to file "because I was scared, bad scared. I didn't know who to tell."
Clinton's lawyer, Robert Bennett, is expected to ask the suit be postponed until Clinton is out of office, arguing it would distract from his duties.
Jones said she still thinks Clinton should be held responsible now. "He may be the president, but he did something wrong. . . . The American people should know.
"Everybody's supposed to look up to someone like that like he's a God on Earth, you know? I would think the people would at least want to know and see if it's true or not."
Jones, 27, has been living in Long Beach, Calif., with her husband and son, but she came to a Washington for a series of print and TV interviews, including one with ABC's Prime Time Live Thursday night.
On ABC, Jones was asked whom she voted for in the 1992 election. "Mr. Bush. That was my first time I ever voted, and I registered to vote just so I could vote against Bill Clinton."
