President Clinton still believes it is inappropriate to delve into Ms Paula Jones's sexual history in her sexual harassment lawsuit against him, the White House said yesterday.
Asked if Mr Clinton was sticking to the position on the matter from last summer, the White House spokesman, Mr Mike McCurry, said: "Yes. Well, I'm not aware of any change in that."
The Washington Post had reported yesterday that in a letter sent to Judge Susan Webber Wright of US District Court, Mr Clinton's lawyer, Mr Robert Bennett, said he would file "sensitive information of a sexual nature about Paula Jones" to counter her assertions that she was so traumatised by Mr Clinton's alleged proposition that she suffers from an antipathy towards sex.
Mr Bennett said the Post misinterpreted the letter and that he will avoid raising issues about Ms Jones's past sex life.
Ms Jones, a former Arkansas state employee, has filed a sexual harassment suit alleging Mr Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, exposed himself to her in a Little Rock hotel suite in 1991 and asked her for oral sex. Mr Clinton has denied the allegations.
Mr Bennett maintained in the letter, according to the Post, that Ms Jones effectively opened the door to this line of rebuttal by filing an affidavit from a sexual disorders specialist who examined her last month, almost seven years after the alleged incident.
"Unfortunately, the Washing- ton Post jumped the gun on the story by relying on an interpretation from the plaintiff's side of the letter that should not have been leaked to the Post," Mr Bennett told the New York Times.
President Clinton's lawyers moved yesterday to dismiss Jones's sexual harassment case, arguing that her claim of suffering sexual aversion after an encounter with Mr Clinton was a "big joke".