Paula Jones’s Backers Decry ‘Witch Hunt’
January 15, 1998 | Read Time: 2 minutes
A non-profit group helping Paula Jones pay for her sexual-harassment lawsuit against President Clinton has claimed that Mr. Clinton and his lawyers are conducting a “witch hunt” to challenge the group’s tax-exempt status.
Last month, the president’s lawyers issued a subpoena for documents related to the Rutherford Institute’s eligibility as a tax-exempt organization. It also demanded testimony from the institute’s officials about the group’s purpose and basis for tax-exempt status.
The institute, based in Charlottesville, Va., refused to comply and filed a motion in federal court objecting to the subpoena. The motion calls the subpoena a “fishing expedition” intended to “intimidate, injure, and harass” the institute.
The motion says that the request for information is a deliberate attempt to bring down an audit on the institute by the Internal Revenue Service and to hurt the group’s fund-raising ability.
“This purported discovery attempt should be identified for what it is — a witch hunt for having the audacity to challenge the President of the United States,” the motion says.
Robert S. Bennett, a lawyer for Mr. Clinton, told The Washington Post that the allegations made by the Rutherford Institute are “false and preposterous.” He told the newspaper that the institute’s tax-exempt status “is between them and the I.R.S.,” although he said that taxpayers should find it an “outrage” that they are giving an indirect subsidy to Ms. Jones’s legal case. He said that the purpose of the subpoena is to help establish the political motives of the people who are helping Ms. Jones.
Ms. Jones claims that Mr. Clinton, while Arkansas Governor in 1991, exposed himself to her in a hotel room. She worked for the state at the time.
The Rutherford Institute was founded in 1982 to support people who claim that their constitutional or human rights have been threatened or violated. The cases almost always involve religious issues, although a lawyer for the institute says that the Jones case is at least the second sexual-harassment lawsuit that the institute has supported.
