Starr’s Office Let Tripp Give Details to Jones’ Lawyers

Contrary to standard practice, independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s prosecutors did not instruct their key witness, Linda Tripp, to keep secret the sensitive details of President Clinton’s affair with a White House intern during a critical phase of their expanding investigation last January.

This omission permitted Tripp to provide detailed descriptions of the illicit relationship to lawyers representing Paula Corbin Jones, who was suing Clinton for alleged sexual harassment. Tripp’s information came just in time to help the Jones attorneys grill the president extensively under oath about his liaisons with Monica S. Lewinsky.

In that deposition, the president denied engaging in sexual relations with Lewinsky--and those denials now stand at the heart of the impeachment case before Congress.

It was on the eve of Clinton’s deposition--on the same day she was granted immunity by Starr--that Tripp met with an attorney representing Jones. Tripp not only answered questions about Lewinsky, she even suggested a few for the president, said a source close to Tripp.

Those actions raise a central question: Did Starr help pave the way for Clinton to commit the alleged perjury that his prosecutors then proceeded to investigate?

Starr’s spokesman, Charles G. Bakaly III, said that the independent counsel’s office played no role, tacit or otherwise, in setting up Clinton for the Jones case.

“We had no reason to know and did not know [Tripp] was talking to the Jones lawyers,” Bakaly said Saturday. “We were upset when we learned subsequently through the media” that she had done so.

Until Clinton was confronted with 95 highly detailed questions about Lewinsky in his Jones deposition Jan. 17, the president was not under suspicion of perjury.

In the crucial days before Clinton’s testimony, Starr’s office received a heads-up from a lawyer associated with the Jones team concerning the information that Tripp had collected on Lewinsky and the president, according to sources knowledgeable about the events.

Indeed, one person familiar with these developments said that Starr’s prosecutors were expecting Tripp to share information with the attorneys for Jones. “They were hoping the Jones people would ask the right questions of Clinton,” this person said.

And James A. Moody, who represented Tripp in January, said in an interview he advised Starr’s deputies just days before Clinton’s testimony that the Jones team wanted to question his client under oath.

In addition, the Jones lawyers were clearly desperate to talk to Tripp before questioning Clinton under oath. According to one person close to Tripp, they had left four increasingly “frantic” telephone messages for her.

Yet prosecutors did not follow the customary procedure of advising Tripp--a cooperating witness who wore a body wire for Starr and was in the process of receiving immunity from him--to refrain from talking without their permission to the Jones attorneys, the press and others.

Tripp’s dual role--as Starr’s prime witness in his investigation of the Lewinsky matter and as an informant for the Jones lawyers--is the focus of intense scrutiny as the House Judiciary Committee considers whether to impeach the president.

The links between lawyers involved in the Jones case, in Starr’s office and on behalf of Tripp--more extensive than previously known--suggest that a cast of conservatives had a role in the events leading to the crisis that now threatens Clinton’s presidency.

Clinton’s predicament, to be sure, can be traced to his own conduct. The core of the impeachment case is based on the relationship he admitted in August with Lewinsky and whether he lied about it under oath during his January deposition in the Jones case. Events forming the basis for obstruction of justice and other allegations occurred before Tripp went to Starr.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno said last week that she was reviewing allegations from Clinton’s private attorney, David E. Kendall, concerning the evidence Starr presented to persuade her to approve expanded authority in the Lewinsky investigation. Starr said his dealings with the Justice Department in this process were “professional, responsible and forthright.”

Independent Counsel Under Scrutiny

But Richard Ben-Veniste, a former Watergate prosecutor and an outspoken critic of Starr’s investigation, said it “seems inconceivable that the Starr camp was unaware that Ms. Tripp was feeding information to the Jones camp” before Clinton’s deposition.

Veteran federal prosecutors said they routinely notify a cooperating witness not to disclose any information related to an ongoing government inquiry. This is done to maintain control of the flow of information and keep important evidence from falling into the hands of other parties.

“Ordinarily, you would tell a witness not to talk about an investigation” in which the witness is wearing a wire or otherwise cooperating, said Joseph E. diGenova, former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and himself a former independent counsel who has been sharply critical of Clinton. “You sure wouldn’t want anyone to talk about it unless that would be part of a plan to draw others out.”

Asked last week why prosecutors didn’t follow standard practice by telling Tripp to keep quiet, Bakaly initially responded somewhat ambiguously, saying, “I’m not sure that was an issue.” On Saturday, Bakaly said that Starr’s office told Tripp “not to tell anyone that we were involved” in investigating the Lewinsky matter.

Starr’s prosecutors endorsed other measures taken to keep Tripp from sharing sensitive information concerning Lewinsky and Clinton.

They concurred with Moody’s suggestions that Tripp change her unlisted telephone number and immediately cease talking to her confidant Lucianne Goldberg, according to Moody and Goldberg. A New York literary agent, Goldberg had already spread news of Clinton’s relationship with Lewinsky in conservative political circles, and it reached the lawyer who first told Starr’s office about Tripp and Lewinsky.

Bakaly confirmed that Starr’s office had asked Tripp not to talk to Goldberg.

Moreover, when Starr’s prosecutors eventually granted Lewinsky immunity in July, they required her to agree not “to make any statements about this matter” without obtaining their approval.

No such provision was inserted in the immunity agreement for Tripp that was drawn up by Starr’s office in January.

A Plan to Help Jones Legal Camp

Interviews and newly released documents--including grand jury testimony, transcripts of taped conversations and FBI reports--show how a loose network of conservatives collaborated beginning last fall to deliver Tripp and her information about Lewinsky to the Jones attorneys and eventually to Starr.

The role of this coterie was first reported last week by Newsday and the New York Times.

It all began with Tripp--a Bush administration holdover embittered by her White House tenure under Clinton--and her friend Goldberg, who boasts of spying for Richard Nixon’s 1972 presidential campaign.

As Tripp secretly taped her telephone conversations with Lewinsky, beginning Oct. 3, 1997, Goldberg assembled a back channel of conservative-leaning advisors and conduits.

An early contact was Richard W. Porter, a former aide to President Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle, who was a partner in a Chicago law firm that also employed Starr. This network subsequently extended to Jerome M. Marcus, a Philadelphia attorney and Porter’s University of Chicago law school classmate, and George T. Conway III, a New York lawyer.

Porter had helped line up Jones with her original attorneys in the case against Clinton and talked to them on occasion about the lawsuit. Marcus and Conway had assisted the Jones team with a successful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court that allowed the case to proceed against the president while he remained in office.

Conway declined to comment for this story; Porter and Marcus did not return phone calls.

Asked why so many of her confidants had connections to the Jones case, Goldberg responded: “It’s not illegal to be a conservative in this country. It’s not illegal for conservatives to talk to each other.”

By late November, Goldberg said, she had told these lawyers about “a very young woman in the White House having a relationship with the president.” The Goldberg pipeline extended to David Pyke, a Dallas lawyer working on the Jones case.

“I asked one of these guys to give [Pyke] Linda’s number,” which was unlisted, Goldberg said. “She wanted to talk. She was going to see what she could do about her situation.”

At the time, Tripp expected to be subpoenaed in the Jones case because of her comments in Newsweek magazine about Clinton’s encounter with another woman, Kathleen Willey. Tripp had not yet been publicly linked to Lewinsky, whose name had yet to emerge.

A Tripp tape from Nov. 21, 1997, contains a call to her home from Pyke, who said that Goldberg told him about “a woman that’s having a relationship with Clinton,” transcripts from the Starr investigation show.

Tripp told Pyke she would not lie but insisted she appear to be a hostile witness to avoid risking her job at the Pentagon. Tripp later testified before Starr’s grand jury that she provided Pyke limited information about Lewinsky, even refusing to disclose Lewinsky’s name. She asked Pyke not to subpoena the Lewinsky tapes because she was afraid that Clinton’s lawyers would learn that she had made them.

On Nov. 24, her 48th birthday, Tripp received a subpoena from the Jones lawyers to testify about Willey. No mention was made of the tapes or Lewinsky.

The Jones attorneys did issue a subpoena for Lewinsky on Dec. 17 asking for specific gifts, including a hat pin, that Clinton had given her. Tripp later testified that she was “appalled” by the disclosure because she feared that her assistance to the Jones camp would be exposed.

Tripp grew panicky around Christmas. She has testified that she felt her lawyer, Kirby Behre, was too close to the White House. And she was fearful because Behre told her that the tapes she had secretly made of her calls with Lewinsky violated Maryland law. Despite the warning, Tripp recorded another Lewinsky call on Dec. 22.

In early January, Goldberg began exploring the best way for Tripp to approach Starr’s office about Lewinsky’s relationship with Clinton. A source close to Tripp said Goldberg never told her friend about these efforts.

Goldberg said she contacted Starr’s law partner Porter, who got in touch with Marcus, a former federal prosecutor, as a way to conceal Porter’s involvement. In turn, on Jan. 8, Marcus phoned Paul S. Rosenzweig, another law school classmate in Starr’s office, according to lawyers familiar with the call.

The following day, Jan. 9, Rosenzweig informed Starr’s Washington deputy, Jackie Bennett, about Clinton having an affair with a White House intern.

“It had just been a general heads-up,” said Bakaly, Starr’s spokesman. He said the response was that “we only take information in the front door. We don’t deal with rumors.”

That day, Goldberg asked Conway to suggest a new attorney for Tripp. He recommended Moody, a solo practitioner who had done work for conservative legal foundations.

A Pledge to Seek Immunity for Tripp

Moody, Conway and Rosenzweig all share a common bond with Starr. They belong to the Federalist Society, a conservative and libertarian legal organization founded during the Reagan administration. It has about 5,000 members nationwide.

On Jan. 12, at 5:30 p.m., Tripp called Bennett at Starr’s office “hysterical” with fear for her safety, she later told the grand jury.

During this conversation, Tripp told Bennett that Clinton’s close friend Vernon E. Jordan Jr. was “an active participant in what I think I deemed a cover-up.” She said she felt the president was involved. She added that Jordan and Clinton were getting the young woman a job. Tripp also said the woman was being encouraged to lie in the Jones case.

By 11:45 p.m., Bennett, two other prosecutors and an FBI agent went to Tripp’s house in Maryland. They pledged to seek federal immunity for Tripp for the telephone taping--a possible felony--and help her with any legal problems at the state level. (Maryland authorities are now investigating Tripp on allegations of illegal wiretapping.)

On Jan. 13, Starr’s deputies asked Tripp to wear a wire to her scheduled lunch with Lewinsky at the Ritz-Carlton near the Pentagon in Virginia. She agreed.

With tape rolling and agents listening, Lewinsky said she had followed Tripp’s advice and informed Jordan that she would deny an affair with Clinton in an affidavit only after he had secured a desirable job for her in New York. (Lewinsky later testified that she lied about this point because Tripp had insisted that Lewinsky make such a demand.)

That day, Moody said he suggested that Tripp change her phone number because “I wanted to be able to reach her without her talking to anybody else until the dust settled.”

Starr’s prosecutors, Moody said, “thought it was a good idea too.”

But when it came to a prohibition on communicating with anyone else, Moody said, “I don’t recall any instructions at all” from Starr’s office. Moody said he found it especially odd that the prosecutors never advised Tripp to avoid the press.

With Clinton’s deposition in the sexual harassment case imminent, Moody said, he also informed Starr’s prosecutors that the Jones lawyers “were trying to schedule a deposition” with Tripp. He said their reaction was: “[This is] none of our business. Thank you for telling us.”

Bakaly, Starr’s spokesman, said, “We couldn’t tell her not to honor a subpoena.”

On Jan. 13, Starr’s prosecutors again visited Tripp’s home; the FBI installed a wiretap the next day. There were “maybe a dozen” contacts between Starr’s office and Tripp during this week, Moody said.

Starr’s attorneys met with Justice Department officials Jan. 15 to discuss expanding their inquiry to pursue the Lewinsky matter.

Starr Expands His Inquiry

On Jan. 16, Reno referred the matter to a three-judge panel, which granted Starr the authority to investigate the Lewinsky matter.

Tripp received her immunity agreement from Starr that day. That afternoon, she lured Lewinsky back to the Ritz-Carlton, where Starr’s prosecutors and FBI agents descended on her.

By then, Moody said, the Jones lawyers from Dallas were in town to take Clinton’s deposition on Jan. 17. Determined to talk to Tripp, the Jones attorney offered her a deal: They would forego a formal deposition, which Tripp was anxious to avoid, if Tripp briefed them before the scheduled session with the president.

Tripp agreed to the hastily arranged briefing, Moody said.

Moody said he scheduled the interview for the evening of Jan. 16--after Tripp left Starr’s investigators and Lewinsky. The Jones team said one of their attorneys would travel to Tripp’s house and give Moody, who is legally blind, a ride from Washington.

Moody said he did not inform Starr’s office about the timing of his client’s questioning by the Jones lawyers. Asked why not, Moody replied: “No particular reason. It was a different, unrelated event. At the time, there was no connection. Starr was investigating obstructions and cover-ups and perjury, not adultery.”

Tripp testified that the subject of her meeting with the Jones attorneys “never came up” with Starr’s lawyers.

Moody made the now-familiar ride to Tripp’s house that night, this time escorted by T. Wesley Holmes, a jeans-clad Jones attorney. Holmes spent about 20 minutes there, pressing Tripp only about matters concerning Lewinsky, Moody recalled.

As Holmes was leaving, Tripp told him: “You haven’t asked me one single thing about Kathleen Willey, and that was the whole point of my being deposed,” according to her testimony.

Holmes replied: “We have everything we need on Kathleen.”

Times staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow and researcher Tricia Ford contributed to this story.

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Starr Witness

Linda Tripp’s role in the days preceding President Clinton’s Jan. 17 deposition in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment case raises questions about whether independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr essentially allowed Tripp to provide information that helped the Jones lawyers question Clinton more extensively under oath about his relationship with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky. Material was gathered from the independent counsel’s referral to Congress, grand jury testimony and interviews.

Jan. 8: Jerome M. Marcus, a Philadelphia lawyer who has assisted the Jones legal team, provides a heads-up to a law school classmate in Starr’s office concerning Clinton’s relationship with a young woman. Marcus received the information through a friend of Tripp’s.

Jan. 12: Tripp, “hysterical” with fear for her safety, calls Starr’s office about 5:30 p.m. Six hours later, three prosecutors and an FBI agent arrive at Tripp’s home. They stay until about 1 a.m.

Jan. 13: Starr’s prosecutors wire Tripp, who keeps a lunch date with Lewinsky at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel near the Pentagon and secretly records their conversation.

Jan. 14: FBI agents install a wiretap at Tripp’s home.

Jan. 15: Starr’s prosecutors seek authority from Justice Department to investigate Clinton’s relationship with Lewinsky. Attorneys for Jones frantically attempt to reach Tripp. They then offer to forgo a formal deposition in the Jones lawsuit if Tripp will meet with them before Clinton’s deposition in the Jones case.

Jan. 16: Starr receives approval to investigate Lewinsky matter. Tripp asks Lewinsky to another lunch date, where the younger woman is detained by prosecutors and FBI agents. Tripp receives immunity from Starr for potentially illegal telephone recordings of conversations with Lewinsky. That evening, Tripp meets Jones attorney T. Wesley Holmes and answers questions about Lewinsky.

Jan. 17: Jones lawyers depose Clinton for six hours, asking 95 detailed questions about Lewinsky. Clinton’s allegedly false statements form basis for perjury allegations that Starr has cited as grounds for possible impeachment.