Kathleen Willey

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Kathleen Willey was a White House volunteer aide who, on March 15, 1998, alleged on the TV news program 60 Minutes that Bill Clinton had sexually assaulted her on November 29, 1993, during his first term as President. She had been subpoenaed to testify in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case.^[1]

1 Claims
2 Investigation and current status
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Claims

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According to Willey, during a meeting in the private study of the Oval Office, Clinton had embraced her tightly, kissed her on the mouth, fondled her breast and then placed her hand on his penis. Clinton denied assaulting Willey. This alleged event occurred on the same day that Willey's husband committed suicide.

According to Linda Tripp’s grand jury testimony, Tripp felt Willey pursued a romance with Clinton from the start of her White House affiliation. Willey had speculated with Tripp as to how she might be able to set up an assignation between herself and the president. She routinely attended events at which Clinton would be present, wearing a black dress she believed he liked. According to Tripp’s testimony, she wondered if she and Clinton could arrange to meet in a home to which she had access, on the Chesapeake Bay. [1]

Tripp also challenged Willey’s account of that Oval Office meeting. According to Tripp, Willey had arranged the meeting in part to see if her flirtation with Clinton might advance. After Clinton and Willey met privately, Willey rushed back to Tripp’s office to describe the meeting. According to Tripp, Willey “smiled from ear to ear the entire time” as she described the event. “She seemed almost shocked, but happy-shocked,” Tripp told the grand jury. Willey told Tripp that she and Clinton had "smooched," but made no mention of a sexual assault.

[edit] Investigation and current status

The Final Report of the US Office of the Independent Counsel report noted that "Willey gave false information to the FBI about her sexual relationship with a former boyfriend, and acknowledged having lied about it when the agents confronted her with contradictory evidence. Following Willey’s acknowledgment of the lie, the Independent Counsel agreed not to prosecute her for false statements in this regard."^[2] According to Independent Counsel Robert Ray’s report, "Willey’s [Paula] Jones deposition testimony differed from her grand jury testimony on material aspects of the alleged incident."^[3]

According to a book critical of Clinton by Candice E. Jackson, Linda Tripp told Larry King in February 1999 that Willey is "an honest person" who was "telling the truth" about her sexual assault at Bill Clinton's hands. ^[4] However, Tripp's grand jury testimony differs from Willey's claims regarding Willey's of inappropriate sexual advances.^[5]

Willey has a history of controversial claims including telling the FBI she was pregnant and she had a miscarriage when she did not.^[6]

Willey remarried in November 1999 to Bill Schwicker.[2] Now divorced, she works and resides in Powhatan County, Virginia.[3]

In March 2000, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that President Clinton had "committed a criminal violation" of the Privacy Act by releasing letters from Willey to the President that were written even after the alleged incident.^[7] A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court of Appeals later criticized this ruling,^[8] though Willey subsequently filed suit against the White House, over this issue.^[9]

On November 6, 2007, her book Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton was published by World Ahead Media. In her book, Willey claimed that on Labor Day weekend 2007, her house was burglarized, with the only thing stolen being a manuscript of her book Target. Willey stated that she believes individuals with ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton are responsible for the break-in, Willey also filed a police report.^[10] Media Matters reported that, in a November 7 interview with Sean Hannity she contradicted information from her own book.^[11] Willey had alleged that, two days before her deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case, Cody Shearer, the brother of a Clinton White House aide, had confronted her, hurt her cat, and threatened her children. During The Sean Hannity Show Willey stated, "[the] FBI checked it out, and they found his excuse to be, for not being there, his alibi, was uncheckable, not so much ironclad as uncheckable." However, in her book she had written, "I was told that Shearer had an 'airtight' and 'ironclad' alibi, but another source told me that it was 'uncheckable.'"