HE EXPOSED HIMSELF

BORN the daughter of an evangelical minister, Paula Jones hit notoriety in a scandal which threatened the Bill Clinton presidency.

In a sexual harassment lawsuit, she accused him of propositioning her in a hotel in Little Rock in May 1991, when he was Governor of Arkansas.

Mrs Jones kept quiet about the incident until 1994, by which time Mr Clinton was president, and then filed a sexual harassment claim against him – two days before the threeyear statute of limitations.

She claimed she had been escorted to his hotel room, where he groped her and exposed himself. She asked for $750,000 (£610,000) in damages.

The minister’s daughter from a Bible Belt town in Arkansas notoriously said she could remember a ‘distinguishing mark’ on Mr Clinton’s manhood.

Even more infamous was Mr Clinton’s claim – in a deposition for the Jones case – that he had not had sex with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

The scandal led to his impeachment on a perjury charge, although he was eventually acquitted in the Senate.

The explosive claims rocked the Clinton presidency, and supporters of Mrs Jones accused him of lying and publicly branded him ‘un-American’.

He eventually agreed to pay an $850,000 out-of-court settlement in 1998, although he did not admit any wrongdoing. The case was later dismissed.

Lawyers for Mr Clinton continued to insist the claim was baseless, but said he needed to concentrate on his job as president. He later referred to Mrs Jones as a ‘floozy’ and a ‘nobody’.

A judge later ruled Mrs Jones would receive only $200,000, with the rest of the payout covering her legal bill.

Her marriage broke down during the trial and she went on to pose for an article, ‘The Perils of Paula Jones’, in Penthouse magazine, saying she needed the money to pay a large tax bill and to support her two young sons.

Mrs Jones, now 50, appeared at the Trump press conference in a bejewelled baseball cap and baggy grey hooded sweatshirt, and urged Americans to vote for Trump.

Her support came despite the tycoon branding her a ‘loser’ in 1998, when he said: ‘Paula Jones is a loser, but the fact is that she may be responsible for bringing down a president indirectly.’

She told the press conference: ‘I’m here to support Mr Trump because he’s going to make America great again.

‘I think everybody else should vote for him… he is a good person.’

Mrs Jones began shouting as journalists asked about Mr Trump’s boasts about groping women, asking: ‘Why don’t you ask Bill Clinton that? Ask Hillary as well.’