Monte Cargo wrote: It is beyond bizarre and nothing short of a catastrophic disconnect with reality for you to hold that a party that paid out an $850,000 settlement is not guilty. Most civil court cases end up in settlements of some kind, where the guilty party agrees to pay a monetary settlement in lieu of waiting for a court judgement.
Oh really, Mr. Monte Cargo. For a member who pursues legal topics with such enthusiasm, how is it you are unfamiliar with the time-honored tradition of paying off a plaintiff to just go away, regardless of the merits of the case?
If you are a passenger in a car which gets hit by another motorist, very often the motorist's insurance company will come around, unasked, and offer you a check. You may be unhurt, and not asking for money, but they offer it anyway. Why? Just to make sure you go away permanently-that you don't decide to sue them somewhere down the line. So they offer unasked for money just to make sure you go away.
In any case where a person of means is sued, regardless of the merits, the lawyers discuss the desirability of just throwing the suer a small settlement to get lost. The defendant's lawyers don't always do it, but it is a consideration that is usually discussed and very often taken.
If you read the transcript, Paula Jones' lawsuit was bogus. For such a politically motivated lawsuit backed by powerful political forces, (remember Jones was talked into suing by rich, powerful Republicans-she wasn't going to do it on her own), the suit looked like it took the lawyers about two hours to compose, write and file-total.
In one memorable excerpt, Jones was claiming as a result of her rebuff of Clinton's attentions, she was denied the chance for a certain job in the Arkansas state government which paid better.
Jones was told that she had no application in her file for this job she was talking about. Jones then claimed that her supervisor told her not to even bother applying-the job was not really available. That is why there was no application.
Jones was asked what the title of the job was. Jones said she did not know.
Jones was asked to give a brief description of the nature of the job she was supposedly interested in. Jones could not even do that.
So, among other things, Jones was suing for not getting a job which she never filled out an application for, could not give the title of, and could not even tell what the nature of the job was.
How could Judge Susan Webber Wright NOT throw this silly suit out?
However, as a result of this suit, it turned out that the President gave answers about a consenting, adult extramarital affair that were not truthful. This resulted in months and months of investigations, hearings, impeachment proceeedings and conviction votes in the Congress. Most of it the result of this thrown-out lawsuit.
So when Jones lost her case, she had a lawyer's bill for $800,000, and not the kind of job skills which could pay it off. She had little choice, from a purely financial point of view, but to roll the dice and go for the appeal. she did so. Which would result in even more months of upheaval.
A President only gets, at best, eight years in office. Way, way too much of that time had already been consumed by Paula Jones and her claims. So Clinton made the deal-he would pay her the money her lawyers were suing her for, throw in another $50,000 for what Paula Jones might have spent for travel, plastic surgery and other expenses while pursuing the case, if Jones would drop the appeal and put an end to it. In other words, Jones couldn't afford to go away after she lost her case, so Clinton just paid her bills so she would. She did.
Later, Jones settled the $800,000 lawsuit her lawyers were suing her for by paying them $650,000, and she pocketed the rest. But that deal came AFTER the settlement offer from Clinton. At the time of the Clinton settlement, Jones' lawyers were suing her for $800,000, and she had no guarantee they would settle for less. So that is what Clinton offered her to go away. And that is what she took.
Jones was paid to go away. Her claims were meritless, but the appeal was just going to drag things out even further-so Clinton made the deal.
