WASHINGTON, Jan 18: Only time and history will tell how badly President Bill Clinton's six-hour deposition at the law offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom on Saturday in a sexual misconduct suit will reflect on his legacy.But as Clinton's motorcade crept out of the basement garage of the downtown building to avoid a throng of journalists from across the world, images of a humiliated Presidency were already being broadcast and written in a myriad languages in one of the tawdriest political dramas in modern history.
Returning to the White House a bare 500 metres away, Clinton cancelled a dinner outing with his wife Hillary and threw himself into work.
Aides declined to comment on the deposition because of a gag order from the judge -- as also from Clinton himself -- but let it be known that the President conferred with Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles about the Asian economic crisis and pored over the latest draft of his upcoming State of the Union speech.
Before going in for the deposition,
Clinton reportedly told his spokesman Mike McCurry, ``Why are you disturbing my crossword?'' when asked about his mood.
But despite the all-is-normal vibes they tried to project, the agony of enduring the public spectacle -- despite the strict gag order -- was all too evident. Former Presidents from George Washington to Dwight Eisenhower -- not to speak of JFK -- have been accused of philandering. Some other Presidents have had to appear before judges in various other cases. But no one has had the misfortune of deposing under oath in a sexual harassment suit, that too in an era when newspapers have scaled the heights of candour and television has plumbed the depths of intrusiveness.
For almost six hours on a cold Saturday, Clinton was grilled by lawyers for Paula Jones about his alleged libidinous proclivities with his accuser staring him in the face. Although the session was closed to the Press, news of what was transpiring trickled out in dribs and drabs.
While a media fest buzzed down on the street
in a colourful melange of OB vans, cables and TV cameras, Clinton deposed in camera in a conference room on the 11th floor of the building. The President sat at one end of a long table facing a video camera at the other end. Jones and her six lawyers sat along one side, while a smaller contingent of attorneys for the President sat along the other. A Secret Service agent also was present inside while sharpshooters hovered on the rooftop.
There was no word on the tone or content of the questioning, but judging by the marathon sitting and indications from Jones lawyers before the deposition, the President was asked intimate details of his personal life, including reports from women -- like Gennifer Flowers -- who have testified that they had affairs or were subject of unwelcome advances from him.
Clinton's attorney Robert Bennett wanted to shield the President from intrusive questions about his personal life and has argued that extramarital relationships are not relevant to a sexual harassment case. Jones'
lawyers tried to drive home a pattern of behaviour that would establish their client's charges.
Clinton aides had made it known that the President intended to testify that he does not remember meeting Jones, although he was willing to concede they may have met alone at the Excelsior Hotel in 1991.
Clinton's then bodyguard, State Trooper Danny Ferguson, has testified that he escorted Jones to the hotel suite that day, but maintained that she sought the meeting while admiring Clinton's good looks and also offered to be ``the Governor's girlfriend.''
Jones, a low-level clerk who worked on a $6.95 per hour job in Arkansas when Clinton was the Governor of the State, says Clinton called her over to his room, dropped his trousers, and sought oral sex.
After a first three-hour session, the gathering broke up to separate rooms for lunch ordered from a nearby take-out, before reconvening for another two-hour session.
While the President predictably steamed out after the deposition without meeting the Press,
Jones, who had arrived to a raucous welcome, also fled in a taxicab that was called in to the basement garage.
Her spokeswoman and confidante, Susan Carpenter-McMillan, described some of the paparazzi gathered as real jerks.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
