LITTLE ROCK, Nov 11: President Bill Clinton's lawyers today charged that efforts by Paula Jones to amend her sexual harassment suit against him were intended to embarrass him politically and hide her background. Jones had asked the Federal court in Little Rock to drop claims that her reputation was damaged by a remark made to a magazine reporter by a State Police bodyguard, Danny Ferguson. Ferguson who had accompanied Clinton on the day that Jones says the then Governor of Arkansas pressured her for sex.

``The amended complaint is a transparent effort to use this case to harm the President, while trying to shut the door on embarrassing evidence involving plaintiff,'' Clinton's lawyers said in papers filed in court.

Jones had claimed that Clinton propositioned her at a Little Rock hotel in 1991, when she was a State employee and they both attended a conference there. Clinton has denied the charge. Observers suggested that Jones' motion was an attempt to limit testimony about her personal life while leaving Clinton's private life open to discovery, an interpretation Clinton's lawyers embraced in sharp language.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.