Special Reports Personal Collection:

Norris Carden's (www.nuzman.com) e-mail collection of Drudge's Special Reports (5/31/1997 - 1/17/2001.)



XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT URGENT XXXXX 21:43:22 EST MON MAR 30 1998 XXXXX





MISS AMERICA: I SLEPT WITH CLINTON, BUT HE DID NOT RAPE ME!





NEW YORK -- The NEW YORK DAILY NEWS is set to run an exclusive interview in

Tuesday editions with former Miss America Elizabeth Ward Gracen, who tells

reporter Helen Kennedy that she had consensual sex with Bill Clinton when he

was governor of Arkansas -- she was not raped.



The stunning admission, obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT early Monday evening,

will have attorneys for Paula Jones hitting brick wall. Jones lawyers had

hoped Gracen would support their case against the president by testifying

that Clinton sexually assaulted her and then secured silence with favors.



Gracen calls their allegations "lies."



Gracen had been a target of Jones' lawyers, who have been unable to subpoena

her because she has been jet-setting between the Caribbean, Canada and Paris

for nearly six months.



[Gracen denies trying to duck the Jones subpoena, telling the paper that she

recently spent a week in Arkansas with her family. She says she is "totally

prepared" to tell it all under oath.]



"I had sex with Bill Clinton, but the important part to me is that I was

never pressured," she now tells the NEWS. "We had an intimate evening.

Nothing was ever forced. It was completely consensual... He's a very

charming, handsome man."



Paula Jones attorneys have included as evidence a sworn deposition given by

Judy Stokes, a former friend of Gracen's. Stokes swore that Gracen

tearfully told her in the mid-1980s that Clinton forced her into sex in the

back of a limousine in 1982.



"That never happened. It's completely false," Gracen explains. "I never told

her that Bill Clinton pressured me or harassed me. I don't know why she said

that. It baffles me... [This] insults all women who have been sexually

harassed. It's a very serious issue... I just don't fall into that category.

I was never a government employee; he never acted improperly; he never asked

me to lie; he never gave me a job. The only reason they're going after me

is the PR value."



But the admission is a turn-around for Gracen -- who had denied any encounter.



She explains how in the aftermath of the Gennifer Flowers scandal back in

the May of '92, Clinton's campaign asked her to issue a statement denying

she had sex with Clinton.



She quickly complied. However, she insists to the NEWS that she was not

pressured into making that statement.



She explains: "His campaign contacted my manager and asked, 'Would she

issue a formal denial?' I saw it as a situation where that made good sense.

I wanted it [the publicity] to go away... They never pushed me into that at

all. I'm too independent."



Coincidentally, on Monday, Gracen closed a deal to star in a new series

HIGHLANDER: THE RAVEN, a spin-off of her current show. Gracen scoffed at

suggestions she kept the secret all these years in exchange for Clinton's

help in getting work in Tinseltown.



She tells the paper: "If the President of the United States was on the

phone pulling strings for me, I'd be on SEINFELD. I'm not standing on the

front of the Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio, am I?"



____________________________________________________

Filed by Matt Drudge in New York City

The REPORT is moved when circumstances warrant

http://www.drudgereport.com for breaks

(c)DRUDGE REPORT 1998

Not for reproduction without permission of the author







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