Clinton Will Spill The Beans

President Clinton said he will have plenty to say about Paula Jones after he leaves the White House.

Until then, he said with evident anger Thursday, he will keep mum about a judge's decision that he must pay a fine for lying in the former Arkansas state worker's sexual harassment case.

"When I am out of office, I will have a lot to say about this," Mr. Clinton said during a White House news conference.

"I haven't challenged anything, including things that I consider to be questionable, because I think it is wrong," he said. "The American people have been put through enough and they need every hour, every day, every minute I can give them thinking about their business."

In July, U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright ordered the president to pay about $90,000 for "false, misleading and evasive answers" in his January 1998 deposition in Mrs. Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit.

In that deposition, Mr. Clinton denied a sexual affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

The PresidentÂ's lawyers said he will not challenge Wright's findings, and Mrs. Jones' lawyers said they will not seek more money.

Mr. Clinton has denied he propositioned Mrs. Jones in a Little Rock, Ark., hotel in 1991, while he was governor and she was a state employee.

Mrs. Jones lawyers' drew Ms. Lewinsky into the case in an attempt to show a pattern of sexual misconduct by the President. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr then picked up the trail, and his investigation of Mr. Clinton's relationship with Ms. Lewinsky led eventually to his impeachment by the House. He was acquitted by the Senate.

Last year, President Clinton apologized for his behavior and pledged to return to work.

"Until I leave here, as I understand it now, all this is finished and I don't have to comment on it," he said Thursday. "And unless there is some reason I legally have to, I'm not going to say anything else that doesn't relate to my responsibilities as president as regards that. When I'm done, then I can say what I want to say."

The five-year Jones case is all but over.

The July court award was on top of $850,000 Clinton paid to Mrs. Jones to settle her claim that Mr. Clinton made an unwanted sexual advance in the hotel room in 1991.

Wright dismissed Mrs. Jones' suit in April 1998. Mrs. Jones appealed, and the President eventually agreed to settle. He admitted no wrongdoing.