Clinton Accuser’s Lawyers Quitting President’s Camp Suggests Settlement Prospects Dimming

With Paula Corbin Jones and her attorneys on the verge of bitterly parting ways, President Clinton’s camp suggested Saturday that the prospects of settling her sexual harassment suit against the president had dimmed.

In a petition dated Friday, Jones’ attorneys, Joe Cammarata and Gil Davis, cited a “difference of opinion” in asking U.S. District Court Judge Susan Webber Wright for permission to withdraw from the case, according to two sources close to the case.

The withdrawal petition, which sources said was to be formally entered with the court on Monday, came as settlement discussions in the 3-year-old case had been intensifying.

Jones, through a spokesman, confirmed that she rejected settlement terms pushed by her lawyers - $700,000 and a vague statement of regret for any damage to her reputation - and was interviewing new counsel.

But sources close to the president and his legal team, which is led by Robert Bennett, suggested that this latest turn, after weeks of informal settlement discussions, darkened prospects of an agreement between the parties.

“There’s no basis to resolve it and it won’t matter who they bring in, and what they do,” said one source.

Another expressed confidence that the president wanted the facts laid bare in court. “We’re just going to go to trial,” the source said.

All sides were left guessing whether the judge would allow Cammarata and Davis to abandon the case with no ready replacements and jury selection set to begin May 27. It would be the first case of a U.S. president’s being tried for sexual harassment.

White House spokesman Joe Lockhart, who was traveling with the vacationing president here on Martha’s Vineyard, refused to comment.

Jones herself appeared to be bracing for trial in the search for new attorneys, even as she reiterated a willingness to settle out of court.

“We want to make sure we can get someone to go to trial,” said Susan Carpenter McMillan, a friend and California-based spokeswoman for Jones.

Of Cammarata and Davis, she said: “When you have lawyers who are hellbent on settling I would think they don’t really want to go to trial.”

Cammarata cited attorney-client privilege in refusing to comment.

Sources in the Clinton camp contended that Jones’ split with her attorneys helped to damage her credibility in the suit. Still, two of the sources worried that she might next hire a partisan ideologue bent on ruining Clinton.

Carpenter McMillan said Jones has been interviewing lawyers who are “both pro-Clinton and Democrats.”

“This isn’t about politics, never has been. Everybody wants to make it about politics, but this is a legal case,” she said.

Her husband, trial attorney Bill McMillan, would be brought in to help with negotiations, but would not try the case in court, she added.

Jones’ allegations date from Clinton’s days as governor of Arkansas.

Jones, then a state employee, charges that during a conference at the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock in May 1991, a Clinton bodyguard solicited her to join the governor in a private room where he asked for oral sex. Clinton denies her allegations, saying he does not recall meeting Jones. His attorney has said, however, that it’s possible she was escorted for an innocent meeting in a business suite.

“All you need is an apology and an admission and we all go home, this thing is over and the American public doesn’t have to read about it,” said Carpenter McMillan, the Jones spokeswoman.

Three sources, however, said that money was another point of contention between Jones and her lawyers. She was insisting, the sources said, that the attorneys agree to take one-third of any recovery, lower than their original hourly fee agreement.