While it is true that the Jones lawsuit was dismissed, it is not known whether it would
have been dismissed if the Lewinsky affidavit had been truthful. Paula Jones suit
was dismissed because of an inability to show harm. The harm claimed is lack of
promotion. Lewinsky was treated very kindly by the president in that area, and her
testimony might have supported the harm claimed by Jones. Sure the judge ruled
the evidence inadmissable due to immateriality, but that could have been because
the evidence was false and/or misleading.
The following passage from Judge's Wright's opinion granting the President's motion for summary judgement may not fully disprove every aspect of that argument, but I think it goes a very long way:
One final matter concerns alleged suppression of pattern and practice
evidence. Whatever relevance such evidence may have to prove other
elements of plaintiff's case, it does not have anything to do with the
issues presented by the President's and Ferguson's motions for
summary judgment, i.e., whether plaintiff herself was the victim of
alleged quid pro quo or hostile work environment sexual harassment,
whether the President and Ferguson conspired to deprive her of her
civil rights, or whether she suffered emotional distress so severe in
nature that no reasonable person could be expected to endure it.
Whether other women may have been subjected to workplace
harassment, and whether such evidence has allegedly been
suppressed, does not change the fact that plaintiff has failed to
demonstrate that she has a case worthy of submitting to a jury.
Reduced to its essence, the record taken as a whole could not lead a
rational trier of fact to find for the nonmoving party and the Court
therefore finds that there are no genuine issues for trial in this case.
Here's the full text of the opinion:
washingtonpost.com
(BTW, the Washington Post has very complete, and very well organized, materials relating to the impeachment crisis.)
The fact that the President did some favors for Lewinsky doesn't help prove that he punished Jones. The whole area of trying to prove harassment by showing somebody else may have benefited is far more imagined to by a viable route towards winning a sexual harassment suit, than is actually the case, I believe.
I believe there has to be a really pervasive climate of putting out leading to advancement, with really limited other routes up, for that to work. I'm not sure it's ever worked. At least in any case that was tested up one court level, through appeal. (If anyone can point to such a case, or better yet link it, I would be most interested.)
Doug |
