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Attorneys once again urged the court to dismiss Jones' sexual misconduct suit against President Clinton. Washinton Post correspondent, Dan Balz, comments on the day's events.

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MARGARET WARNER: Today attorneys for President Clinton once again urged a court in Little Rock to dismiss Paula Jones's sexual misconduct damage suit against the President. It was the latest step in a legal back and forth over whether Jones's case against the President should go to trial. The President's lawyers originally moved for dismissal in February. Last Friday, Jones's lawyers responded with 700 pages of briefs and documents designed to prove that she did have a case. Today the President's attorney, Robert Bennett, filed his rebuttal. He then spoke to reporters in Washington. Bennett said Jones's lawyers' claim that she now suffered from sexual aversion because of the alleged harassment was a joke.

ROBERT BENNETT: This alleged incident happened in 1991. And until two/three weeks ago no such claim was in the case. Until two or three weeks ago there was not a single expert witness named under the rules who provided us information that they're required to provide us under the rules. And there all of a sudden to fill a gap in their pleadings, when we show a massive deficiency in their case, the lack of damage, there pops up a Ph.D. in education who gives them an affidavit that there is now a damage claim of sexual aversion. That's what I mean by saying it is a joke.

MARGARET WARNER: One of Jones's lawyers, John Whitehead, responded shortly afterwards.

JOHN WHITEHEAD: Well, obviously, the 700 pages that we filed and now the 200 pages he's filed in response to our response, the President's motion for summary judgment, as we're saying here, obviously raises some genuine issues and material fact, and her claim to sexual aversion has always been part of this case. We've always claimed that she's suffered intentional emotional distress, a number of things related to what occurred in that hotel room on May 8, 1991.

MARGARET WARNER: For more on this we return to the Washington Post's news room and to Dan Balz, a correspondent on the Post's national staff. Dan, what were the most significant points raised in Bob Bennett's filing today?

DAN BALZ: Margaret, today's filing was in many ways a restatement of the initial filing he made last month in which he asked for dismissal of the case. The main argument is simply that Paula Jones and her lawyers have not proved the case; that they have not in any way proven that she was sexually harassed or, as they asserted last week, may have been the victim of a sexual assault. They indicated that she had not suffered job discrimination at any point after what happened in the hotel room, if it occurred, and that she was not a victim of someone who was working in a hostile work environment. So they said, based on everything that was filed last week, they still say they haven't proved the case.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, explain this back and forth over this claim of sexual aversion. What is that? How did it come up?

DAN BALZ: Well, it came up as a result of a document that was included by Paula Jones's lawyers last week. It was a short document based on what the Jones's forces said was an expert on sexual addiction and stress. He claimed, after having recently examined Paula Jones, that she suffered from--I believe it's called post traumatic stress, as well as sexual aversion. What sexual aversion is exactly was not defined in the Jones' filing.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, there was a lot of discussion in Washington, and at Mike McCurry's briefing at the White House about why Bob Bennett did not file anything to undercut this claim as your paper had reported this morning he was planning to do. Tell us about that.

DAN BALZ: Well, briefly, what happened was that yesterday Bob Bennett sent a letter to Judge Wright in Little Rock saying that he intended to raise some sensitive matters about sexual conduct involving Ms. Jones, which he planned to do under seal, not as part of the public filing. Now, this raises the whole issue of whether the President's attorneys intend to go into questions or history about her past sexual activities. When McCurry was asked today--the President's press secretary was asked today--whether the President thinks it is appropriate to do so, he said, no, the President thinks it's inappropriate. But there is on the table now this question of how or when or if Bennett will attempt to rebut the claim of sexual aversion. Now, there was also some controversy over this because Peter Baker of our staff obtained a copy of the letter that Bob Bennett sent down to Judge Wright. We published a story based on that indicating what their intentions were. Sometime in the middle of the night Bob Bennett changed his mind about what they were going to do and decided not to include that material in the filing.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, and he suggested today that, in fact, all the furor over it, which started last night, was part of the reason. Where did the Post get the letter, and why did you print a story about it?

DAN BALZ: Well, we got the letter from Jones's lawyers, and we believed that it was important and relevant to the matter under discussion today. And it was our impression that this letter, itself, was not under seal.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, Bennett today in his press conference also directed reporters' attention to chunks of his cross-examination of some Jones' witnesses that he released today. Again, I know that there were a couple of hundred pages of documents, but from what you've been able to tell about the cross-examination that's been released what's significant in there?

DAN BALZ: There's nothing particularly explosive in what Bennett's filing included today from the deposition with Kathleen Willey. Mostly, it was a series of questions that, one, asked her whether she had suffered any job discrimination as a result of any, you know, sexual activity that may have occurred. She said, no; any threats, no; was she given any favors as a result of anything, no. The other had to do with just the sort of general nature of the friendly relationship between the President and Kathleen Willey.

MARGARET WARNER: And Kathleen Willey, of course, I'm sure everyone in America knows who she is, but she's the one who went on "60 Minutes" on Sunday and said that she and the President had had--he had made a sexual advance in the Oval Office, or off the Oval Office.

DAN BALZ: That's right. Now, one other thing that Bennett's filing did include related to Kathleen Willey is the argument that all of her testimony should be dismissed from the case because it bears no relevance to the claims of job discrimination. And it's those portions of the deposition that he filed that help to support that argument that he makes.

MARGARET WARNER: So, in other words, he's saying because there's no--there was no quid pro quo and Kathleen Willey says there wasn't between whatever occurred of a personal nature and any job-related thing, that it isn't relevant to the Jones case because that's at the heart of the Jones case.

DAN BALZ: Right. And he makes that argument about a number of the depositions that were released by the Jones' lawyers last week. He said most of them are not relevant at all to the main legal issues involved in the Paula Jones case.

MARGARET WARNER: Yet, Kathleen Willey remains a very important potential witness or witness for independent counsel Kenneth Starr in his separate investigation.

DAN BALZ: Well, in many ways she's now more important to the Starr investigation than she is to the Paula Jones case, and for two reasons: one is that she made a direct accusation that the President committed perjury in his deposition as to what happened between him and her when they were together in the Oval Office in November of 1993. The second reason that she has become important to the Starr investigation is that she has brought Starr to investigate whether Nathan Landow, who is a wealthy Democratic fund-raiser and contributor, attempted to pressure her to change her story, not to tell the story that she told in the deposition. Now, at this point we know that Landow has been subpoenaed for some records, but he has not yet appeared before the Starr grand jury.

MARGARET WARNER: And the White House and the President's lawyers have gone to some lengths this week, since "60 Minutes," to undercut Kathleen Willey's credibility certainly.

DAN BALZ: The argument that they have made all week is that what America saw on "60 Minutes" last Sunday night--and they acknowledge that it was a powerful 40 minutes of television, and that she appeared to be a strong and credible witness against the President--but what they say is that's not the entire story, and they have spent the week or during the week we learned more about her in several ways. First of all, the White House released on Monday a series of letters that Kathleen Willey had written to the President after the encounter took place. They were all of a friendly nature. One was signed, "Fondly, Kathleen." They suggested that she may not have been as angry about the incident as she said she was when she testified and when she appeared on "60 Minutes." The second thing we've learned is that she did shop her story around. She attempted to get a book contract. She was seeking a $300,000 advance; that she also talked to a tabloid or associates talked to a tabloid about selling the story to them. And, finally, there was an affidavit released by a long-time friend of hers, Julie Steele, who claimed in the affidavit that Ms. Willey had asked her to lie about the incident to basically back up her version of events that the President had made a sexual advance toward her at the Oval Office and that she was very upset about it after it happened.

MARGARET WARNER: And then very briefly--because we're almost out of time--has there been any--what significant has happened at the grand jury, at Ken Starr's grand jury?

DAN BALZ: Two things: One is that there have been a number of friends of Monica Lewinsky who have been in this week, along with several White House officials, including the White House diarist. We don't know all of what that's about, but we think some of it has to do with E-mail. The other and last thing, which has been going on today, is an important hearing which we think has to do with executive privilege.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, Dan. Thanks again very much.

DAN BALZ: Thank you, Margaret.

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