Paula Jones Seeks Clinton Deal

With Paula Jones and her lawyers exhausted and broke, CBS News Correspondent Phil Jones reports that the Jones legal team has offered to drop their court fight against the president in exchange for $1 million.

"As far as what Paula Jones might get, that would be negotiated out later. But right now it goes to Attorney's fees and expenses," said John Whitehead, who is involved in funding the Jones legal battle.

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The latest revival of settlement talks was initiated by the Jones side earlier this month. Clinton lawyer Robert Bennett responded within the last several days, said the sources, who would not be identified by name.

Discussions are continuing, said one source, who described the talks as "negotiations."

While Jones has insisted on an apology in the past, she would not demand one as part of a settlement now, a source said.

Whitehead said Jones does not need an apology now because "she's been vindicated" by Clinton's admissions of improper sexual conduct with Monica Lewinsky.

And she would be vindicated further, he said, if Clinton pays money to settle the case. "It is an admission if you pay money that the case had merit," Whitehead said.

Whitehead said Mrs. Jones' lawyers reopened discussions in part because Clinton faces new legal troubles with looming House impeachment proceedings.

A legal source familiar with back-and-forth correspondence said Jones' lawyers wrote Bennett two weeks ago proposing a nonnegotiable $1 million settlement stipulating that Clinton acknowledges no wrongdoing.

The proposal had a deadline, but this source declined to elaborate. Clinton's team replied with a letter, the source said, neither accepting nor declining the offer but essentially putting Jones on hold.

Bennett then made his counteroffer by telephone.

Jones contends that Clinton, while governor of Arkansas, asked her to perform a sex act in a Little Rock, Ark., hotel room in 1991.

Jones, a low-ranking state employee at the time, said she refused and was denied raises and promotions as a result. Clinton has denied the incident and denied taking any adverse actions against Jones.

Mrs. Jones' sexual harassment case, dismissed by a judge earlier this year, is being considered by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is scheduled to hear oral arguments next month in Minnesota.

The lawsuit was summarily dismissed in April by U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright, who ruled that even if the facts alleged bMrs. Jones were true, she had not shown proof of any professional harm. The president has denied the incident ever took place.

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