Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Kathleen Willey Interview Excerpts
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Excerpts from Kathleen Willey's interview
Sunday night on CBS's ``60 Minutes'' in which she detailed an alleged
sexual encounter with President Clinton in 1993 in the White House.
``Then he kissed me on my mouth and pulled me closer to him. And ... I
remember thinking -- ... `what in the world is he doing?' he touched my
breasts with his hand ... and he whispered ... `I've wanted to do this
ever
since I laid eyes on you.' And ... then he took my hand, and he put it
on
him. And, that's when I pushed away from him and ...
decided it was time
to get out of there.''
------
``When I think back on it, it was kind of like I was watching it in slow
motion ... And, at the same time ... I thought, `Well, maybe I ought to
just
give him a good slap across the face.' And then I thought, `Well, I
don't
think you can slap the President of the United States.'''
------
``I have gone over this so many times ... `Did I bring this on? Did I
send ...
the wrong signal?' The only signals that I was sending that day, was
that I
was very upset, very distraught, and I needed to help my husband. ... I
didn't feel intimidated. I just felt over-powered. ... I just could not
believe
... the recklessness of that act. ... Later on ... I was feeling angry.
I was
feeling that I had been taken advantage of. My circumstances had been
taken advantage of. ... I was there, asking a friend, who also happened
to
be the President of the United States, for help.''
------
(Willey declined to talk in detail about Democratic fund-raiser Nathan
Landow, with whom she says she discussed her upcoming testimony in the
Paula Jones case. But she described talking to Robert Bennett, the
president's lawyer in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case.)
``I felt pressured by Mr. Bennett. ... He mentioned that he had just ...
been
at the White House, and ... the president asked for me and told him ...
that
he just thought the world of me. And, he said, `now, this ... was not
sexual
harassment, was it?' And, I didn't answer him. And he said, `Well ... it
wasn't unwelcome, was it?' And I said to him, `It was unwelcome and
unexpected.' ... I felt pressured. Especially when he threw in the ...
business about `Well, the president ... thinks the world of you.' I
found that
a little laughable. If the president thought the world of me, why did he
do
what he did?''
(Willey said Bennett suggested she find herself a criminal lawyer.)
``The insinuation to me was that Mr. Bennett was implying that I was
going
to face some kind of a criminal charge for perjury ... or something else
...
and I didn't, and I don't.''
------
(In an interview with The Associated Press, Bennett said, ``Any
suggestion
that I threatened or intimidated her in any way is a bald-faced lie.''
(Bennett said he was asked by Willey's lawyer ``if I could name a lawyer
he could talk to'' and that Bennett did so, providing the name of
prominent
Washington attorney Plato Cacheris.)
------
Willey says that she was doing volunteer work in the 1992 campaign when
Clinton called her from Williamsburg, Va., at her home in Richmond,
``and
he asked me how far I was from Williamsburg.'' Clinton was having
trouble
with his voice, she said, and ``I just jokingly said, `It sounds like
you need
some chicken soup.' And, he said, `Well, would you bring me some?' And
... I don't really think I answered him because I thought he was just
being
facetious. And then he told me that he was surrounded by Secret Service
agents, and ... he would try to get rid of them ... if I would come
down.
And he said he would call me back later, which he did. And I declined to
go. ... Because my instincts told me he wasn't interested in chicken
soup.''
------
(A friend, Julie Steele, says she was asked by Willey to lie about her
White
House encounter with Clinton.) ``My person belief is that she was
pressured. ... I think that the White House wanted to try to discredit
me,
and they found a pawn in her.''
------
(Friend Linda Tripp says Willey confided the sexual encounter with
Clinton
just after leaving the Oval Office, but Tripp says Willey seemed
joyful.)
``I remember saying to her ... `you are just not going to believe
this.'' And
we went outside, and I told her what had happened. ... In defense of her
...
if I get into a very ... tense situation ... I fall back on my sense of
humor. I
think when I said, `you are not going to believe this one,' maybe she
took
that as joyful.''
------
(A few months later, Tripp was moved out of the White House to the
Pentagon, while Willey got a paying job.)
``She said, `I know you're here because the president wants you here.'
...
She was very angry. Very upset. Very bitter. ... She ended the
conversation by saying, `I'm going to get you, and ... everyone else in
this
place, before this is all over.''
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