LITTLE ROCK (Arkansas), March 31: President Bill Clinton's lawyers said Paula Jones' legal team should be cited with contempt for violating a gag order and disclosing the identity of a woman allegedly assaulted by Clinton more than 20 years ago. The President's lawyers said on Monday that Jones' lawyers were trying to taint the jury pool with false information and were using Jones' lawsuit as a stalking horse for the investigation being conducted by independent counsel Kenneth Starr.Jones' lawyers had filed court papers Saturday saying they had evidence of a 1970s sexual assault and contending that Clinton obstructed justice by withholding correspondence about Kathleen Willey until after she went on national television to accuse him of making a crude sexual advance.
Clinton's lawyers responded yesterday by asking US district judge Susan Webber Wright to strike the materials from the record. They also asked that Jones' lawyers be held in contempt of court and required to file all future court papers underseal.
David Pyke, a lawyer for Jones, said her attorneys planned to file their own request asking Wright to sanction Clinton's lawyers for withholding the Willey papers.
Pyke said there was nothing wrong with publicizing the woman alleged to have been attacked by Clinton.
``There's nothing different about what we're doing than what they did in filing a motion for summary judgement and attaching evidence'', he said, while also denying any cooperation with Whitewater prosecutors.
Starr's spokeswoman Deborah Gershman said, ``we are not working in collaboration with the lawyers for Ms Paula Jones.''
Clinton's lawyers contend their legal opponents are ``loading up the public record'' with salacious material that isn't supposed to be made public.
Specifically, they say Jones' lawyers violated an October 30 secrecy order and an oral order March 10 to use the generic name `Jane Doe' for any women wanting to retain their privacy.
Pyke said he understood the March 10 instruction to be a non-bindingrequest, and added that Wright specifically allowed secret materials to be made public for the purpose of arguing whether the case should go trial as scheduled May 27.
Jones' lawyers yesterday identified a registered nurse from Arkansas that they said was the victim of a sexual assault by then attorney general Bill Clinton. They also made public a 1992 letter in which Phillip David Yoakum, an acquaintance of the woman, writes to her.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
