Updated: Mar 19 1998 9:28AM

WASHINGTON: Et tu, Julie? Another nail in the coffin of Kathleen Willey's credibility was hammered home late Wednesday, when her close friend Julie Hiatt Steele released a sworn affidavit saying Willey had asked her to lie to a reporter about the groping she supposedly received from the President. "She told me she needed me to do this for her and that she would explain it all later," Steele said. The fact that Steele had lied to Newsweek's Michael Isikoff about the alleged incident has been known for some time, but only now has she gone on the record to say so. Her lawyer Nancy Luque said Steele was "nobody's pawn" and "felt no pressure" from the White House to contradict her friend.

Willey is not the only Clinton accuser to feel the heat. Paula Jones' credibility is also under attack, this time from Arkansas state trooper Danny Ferguson (a codefendant in Jones' harassment suit). Ferguson's deposition has also slipped through the cracks of what has become one of the leakiest lawsuits in legal history. In it he claims Jones, not Clinton, initiated that fateful May 1991 meeting in the Excelsior hotel. "She thought he was good-looking, had sexy hair, wanted me to tell him that," said Ferguson -- adding that Jones said "she would be his girlfriend." Ferguson himself may not have the greatest reputation for impartiality, but he and Steele are proving there's two sides to every allegation.

-- Chris Taylor