Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [113]
Jones emphasized that this was quite different from a female employee alleging “Oh, somebody said a lewd comment to me.” She explained, “He exposed himself.… I think mine was sexual harassment in the worst way.” Staring firmly ahead, she concluded, “And he knew what was on his mind.”
As the case got under way, Gil Davis and Joe Cammarata were taking creative, even unorthodox steps to force the president to pay their client big money damages. Cammarata, a thin and energetic young attorney who combed his black hair straight back—leading some to compare him to the wisecracking Italian lawyer in the film My Cousin Vinny—loved inventing ingenious litigation maneuvers. He would later become a successful personal-injury lawyer favoring snazzy suits and gold cuff links. Already he was honing his craft, figuring ways to box President Bill Clinton into a corner so that it would be difficult for him to breathe.
Cammarata had already drawn up a sworn affidavit memorializing Paula Jones’s allegations about the “distinguishing characteristic.” In a bold maneuver, he now attempted to file that affidavit under seal in federal court, without turning over a copy to defense counsel as required. When Judge Susan Webber Wright disallowed this move, Cammarata placed a copy in a sealed envelope and delivered it to himself, with a piece of initialed Scotch tape on the back, so that there would be concrete evidence that Jones had described the anatomical characteristic first, in case the White House tried to leak it and claim that Paula was parroting the media.
Ten years later, Cammarata still kept the controversial “distinguishing characteristic” affidavit, its seal unbroken, inside a file placed in an undisclosed location. A copy of that affidavit, obtained from a different source, revealed that it contained Jones’s sworn statement that when then-Governor Clinton had exposed himself, she observed that his male organ “was bent or ‘crooked’ from Mr. Clinton’s right to left, or from an observer’s left to right if the observer is facing Mr. Clinton.”
The distinguishing-characteristic affidavit was not the only trick up the sleeve of the Jones lawyers. Gil Davis, in a memo to Cammarata dated May 16, 1994, had already advised his younger associate: “An investigative team needs to locate Gennifer Flowers who has seen the matter ‘up close and personal.’ She needs to be interviewed for her description.”
As the Virginia lawyers went in search of Flowers, Cammarata simultaneously contacted the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), pressing the liberal organization to take a stand on behalf of his client. This move was designed to demonstrate that the Jones lawsuit was not a “Republican hatchet job.” It was also aimed at shaming liberal feminist groups into siding with Jones. (A similar letter also was sent to the National Organization for Women.) In forwarding Cammarata’s request to the ACLU’s New York and Arkansas offices, the chief legal director of the Washington office penned a whimsical note: “Happy decision-making!”
In one of his most audacious moves, Cammarata went as far as to draft a resolution for Congress to pass. He faxed and delivered copies to prominent Republicans on Capitol Hill, including Senator Don Nickles (R-Okla.), in an effort to prod that body into taking action favorable to Paula’s case. In a draft document preserved in the attorneys’ files and dated July 1995, Cammarata proposed a resolution that almost certainly would have violated the U.S. Constitution’s command against bills of attainder and ex post facto laws. After a few “whereas” clauses stating that “sexual harassment is degrading to the victim and can cause great lasting personal distress,” Cammarata proposed self-serving language by which Congress would declare that a private citizen like Jones could sue a president like Bill Clinton in a civil case.
Many of these litigation moves were simply a “wing and a prayer,” as Cammarata