Hey Ms. Steele, here's another story-changer just like you:
Arkansas Trooper Alters Story to Clinton's Benefit
Los Angeles Times Saturday, March 21, 1998
Testimony: President's co-defendant in suit now says Jones, not
then-governor, instigated hotel meeting.
By WILLIAM C. REMPEL, Times Staff Writer
President Clinton's co-defendant in the Paula Corbin Jones
sexual-harassment lawsuit, Arkansas State Trooper Danny
Ferguson, drastically altered key elements of his eyewitness
accounts in a way that made them significantly more favorable to the
president, according to a review of recently released court
documents.
In interviews in 1993, Ferguson said that he arranged the
disputed encounter between the governor and Jones in a Little
Rock, Ark., hotel suite at Clinton's request. However, in a sworn
deposition last December the former state bodyguard testified that it
was Jones, not Clinton, who instigated the meeting by asking to be
introduced to the governor.
In the same deposition, Ferguson also contradicted his prior
statements about Clinton's offers of federal jobs to him and a
second trooper who were among a group of troopers then
threatening to disclose details of their experiences with Clinton.
While Ferguson's new version of events better fit the Clinton
defense, they may also open the trooper to the same harsh
examination of motives and contradictory statements that have
confronted Clinton's accusers and critics.
It was Ferguson's original account of Clinton's 1991 encounter
with Jones-markedly similar stories that he provided separately to
both The Times and to the American Spectator magazine-that
precipitated Jones' lawsuit.
An account of Ferguson's original version was published by the
American Spectator in December 1993, identifying Jones simply as
"Paula." After that story appeared, suggesting that the woman
involved was a willing participant in a sexual encounter, Jones filed
suit against Clinton, charging him with sexual harassment, and
Ferguson, accusing him of violating her civil rights.
The Times, which published its own "Troopergate" story based
in part on interviews with Ferguson and other state troopers, did not
include any references to the alleged Clinton-Jones meeting in its
account. However, Ferguson discussed the matter in detail during
interviews that began in August 1993.
According to Ferguson's original version, Clinton initiated a
flirtatious exchange with Jones that ended with an invitation to his
room. Ferguson said the incident started in the lobby of the hotel
when "Clinton sent me over to tell her she [Jones] has that
come-hither look."
Ferguson told The Times that he thereafter arranged for Clinton
to get a suite at the hotel using what the trooper portrayed as the
ruse of an anticipated White House phone call. Ferguson himself
arranged the matter with a hotel employee and took Clinton
upstairs.
Then, according to Ferguson's original version of events,
"Clinton sent me down" to tell Jones how to find him.
About 30 minutes later, Ferguson said originally, Jones came
back downstairs "straightening her dress" and allegedly told the
trooper that "I'll be there any time" if Clinton wanted a girlfriend.
By contrast, in his deposition Ferguson testified that Jones first
asked to be introduced to Clinton and said she wanted the trooper
to tell the governor she thought he was "good-looking, had sexy
hair."
Ferguson testified that he relayed such a message to Clinton and
pointed out Jones across the lobby, prompting Clinton's response:
"She's got that come-hither look."
His testimony differed further, characterizing Clinton's request
for a hotel room as a legitimate business need.
While Ferguson has remained consistent in recalling Jones'
response to her meeting with Clinton as excited and happy, his
versions diverged again in recounting Clinton's response afterward.
In his sworn testimony Ferguson said Clinton's only comment
was, "She came up here, and nothing happened."
By contrast, in 1993 Ferguson told The Times that Clinton said:
"I couldn't do anything, so we just talked." Ferguson, who said he
thought the governor and Jones had consensual sex, told the story
to demonstrate what he characterized as Clinton's way of telling
little white lies, even to his bodyguards.
The Times, in its original Troopergate stories, reported that
Clinton contacted Ferguson and offered federal jobs to him and one
of the three other troopers who were talking to reporters about their
experiences escorting Clinton to meetings with women. In one
telephone interview, the trooper said he received multiple telephone
calls from the president in October 1993, including three in a single
day.
"This was the first phone call," Ferguson explained, according to
a transcript of that conversation. "He [Clinton] asked me, he said,
'Dan, would you like to have a job? Would you like to come to
D.C.?' "
Ferguson said he declined because he had not served enough
time as a state trooper to qualify for better pension benefits and
because he had young children. However, he recalled that Clinton
persisted.
"He said, 'Well, there is going to be a regional job open up
[with the Federal Emergency Management Administration]'. . . . He
didn't specify a city. He said, 'Or there is a U.S. marshal's job
open.'
"I said I'm not interested in any of that. . . . I don't want to move
or anything like that."
Ferguson then said that the day after that conversation with the
president, Clinton had one of his aides call Ferguson's wife "and ask
her if she wanted a job in the White House. The very next day!"
However, in his deposition last December the trooper denied
that in his conversations with Clinton the president ever talked about
jobs for Ferguson. And he further denied that he ever told a Times
reporter that such discussions ever occurred.
"Was there any discussion of jobs in the first phone
conversation?" asked Jones attorney Robert Rader during the
deposition.
"No, sir," said Ferguson.
In another interview with The Times, Ferguson also said Clinton
talked about finding a federal job for Trooper Roger Perry. Perry
said he regarded the suggestion as an inducement to keep silent.
Ferguson also said in 1993 that Clinton said he wanted to know
what the troopers were telling reporters so that he could "go in the
back door and shut it down."
Clinton at the time adamantly denied offering jobs for silence.
And Ferguson backed away from those claims immediately after
The Times account was published, authorizing his attorney to issue a
statement that Clinton did not explicitly offer jobs for silence.
Nonetheless, at that time Ferguson stood by his assertion that
he and Clinton had discussed jobs in the same conversations during
which the troopers' interviews with the media were discussed.
In his deposition he accused The Times reporter of badgering
him and putting words in his mouth.
Ferguson's attorney, Arkansas Democratic gubernatorial
candidate Bill Bristow, did not return calls made to his Jonesboro
law office and to his Little Rock campaign headquarters seeking
comment on the differences in Ferguson's accounts.
freerepublic.com
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