Scandal’s End Could Find Tripp in White Hat or Black

The question now is Linda Tripp’s intent--a consideration that is sure to be a central element of potential Watergate-style hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Is Tripp, as President Clinton alleged in his videotaped grand jury appearance, helping to “set me up and trick me?” Or is she a patriot who, as her confidant Lucianne Goldberg says, “put her country over friendship”?

In the voluminous transcripts and notes released this week by the House Judiciary Committee, concerns about Tripp’s motives and actions are raised not only by Clinton and former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky but by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr himself.

Tripp and her tapes of Lewinsky’s tales of White House sex and intrigue are no longer necessary to prove that Lewinsky and Clinton had a series of physically intimate encounters; both have admitted that.

But Tripp’s public image--scheming Clinton enemy or highly moral altruist--could be pivotal when lawmakers decide what punishment fits Clinton’s offense.

In an impeachment arena more political than legal, the “amount of negative stuff on Linda Tripp” has left the White House eagerly awaiting the release of her testimony and tapes, a lawyer close to the Clinton defense team said.

“Don’t forget that Linda Tripp from the beginning had nothing but trouble written all over her,” the attorney said.

Congress has until Monday to decide how much more evidence to distribute, and the Tripp material is expected to be released.

Some Tapes May Have Been Tampered With

Documents released this week reveal that Starr has discovered that he does not possess original recordings of nine of the 17 tapes Tripp secretly made of Lewinsky discussing her relations with Clinton. He said he “cannot exclude the possibility” that someone tampered with seven of those tapes.

Starr now finds himself in the awkward position of investigating his own witness and the evidence she provided, including several tapes from last November and December that could be important in considering obstruction of justice or witness tampering charges--the most serious accusations Starr has leveled against the president.

The latest records also indicate that Tripp actively sought to seed the ground for a Clinton-Lewinsky relationship even before she knew one had started many months before. In November 1996, according to Lewinsky, Tripp goaded the younger woman to nurture an affair with the president, a “neat thing to tell the grandkids.” Starr’s interviewers report Lewinsky saying Tripp told her “she was the kind of woman the president would like.”

By Lewinsky’s account, after Tripp learned that her assessment was all too true, she influenced the relationship’s course and took steps to ensure that it was traceable: coaching Lewinsky on phrasing for letters to the president, coaxing her to prepare a computer spreadsheet detailing encounters and phone calls and working hard to keep the now-infamous semen-stained dress out of the hands of dry cleaners.

Tripp, Lewinsky testified, pressed her hard to demand that Clinton friend Vernon E. Jordan Jr. find her a job before she signed an affidavit in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment lawsuit stating that she “never had a sexual relationship with the president.”

“Monica, promise me,” Lewinsky said Tripp begged her.

A source close to Tripp said: “People need to reserve judgment.” Tripp’s version of events “will have a different feel,” said the source, and what may look like actions to create evidence may instead be seen as “advice given to Monica to protect herself so she won’t be seen as another problem child.”

Tripp believed, the source said, that she had wrongly acquired a problematic reputation when she worked at the Clinton White House because she publicly criticized senior aides for the way they handled evidence on the day a top White House lawyer and close Clinton friend, Vincent Foster, committed suicide. Tripp wanted, the source said, to save Lewinsky from being similarly labeled.

Lewinsky, Tripp Friends No More

Lewinsky clearly rejects the view of Tripp as caring friend. Once, when a grand juror mentioned Tripp’s name, Lewinsky blurted out: “Ugh.”

When given a chance to say anything she wanted, she told jurors she was sorry for everything, then added: “And I hate Linda Tripp.”

As for the tapes, another source close to Tripp said she denies tampering with them and has been notified that she is not a target in Starr’s latest offshoot investigation. It was the content of those taped conversations--about Clinton’s help getting Lewinsky a job and about how Tripp would testify in the Jones case--that helped persuade Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and a three-judge federal panel to authorize Starr to investigate the Clinton-Lewinsky relationship.

And the most controversial conversations, those in which Lewinsky has testified that she lied to Tripp about key facts in the case, are on the tapes that now appear to have been duplicated.

Two of the tapes “contain inaudible recordings,” Starr wrote, and one tape shows signs of having been stopped and started again.

The problems tampered tapes could pose for Tripp’s credibility--and Starr’s case--are not lost on the special prosecutor. “If Ms. Tripp duplicated any tapes herself or knew of their duplication, then she has lied under oath before a grand jury and in a deposition,” he wrote.

“That’s to cover himself. He is so anal,” said Goldberg, a literary agent who once commissioned Tripp to write a book about the Clinton White House and stayed friendly with her after the project fell through.

It was Goldberg who advised Tripp to surreptitiously tape Lewinsky. Tripp attached a Radio Shack recorder to a telephone in the study of her antique-filled Columbia, Md., home and as she filled each cassette, she tossed it in a bowl.

“She was very apprehensive about taping. She said: ‘I feel sleazy doing that,’ ” Goldberg said in an interview. “Linda did not know how to copy. She was terrified of doing anything that would erase stuff.” Goldberg and other Tripp associates said she would refuse to be interviewed.

Goldberg said she made copies of the two earliest tapes--from October 1997--with the permission of Starr’s deputy, Robert J. Bittman. “I asked him and he said, ‘sure,’ ” Goldberg said, adding that she returned the originals. These tapes are not among those questioned by Starr. A Starr spokesman was unavailable for comment.

Two former attorneys for Tripp--first, Kirby Behre, then James Moody--held the tapes in custody for a time, Goldberg said. Behre denied copying or altering any tapes. Moody could not be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, a grand jury in Howard County, Md., was extended indefinitely on Monday to continue considering whether Tripp violated state law, which prohibits willfully taping another person without that person’s knowledge. If Tripp is convicted, she could face up to $10,000 in fines and as much as five years in prison.

Court papers unsealed this week include a contention by Clinton’s lawyers that Tripp met on Jan. 16 with attorneys for Jones, the former Arkansas state employee who was suing Clinton for alleged sexual harassment that she says occurred while he was governor. Consequently, the court papers allege, Jones’ lawyers asked Clinton 95 questions about Lewinsky during his deposition the next day.

If the tapes are found to be illegal and Tripp shared their contents with the Jones team, she could face another felony count in Maryland. “Disclosing the information from illegally made audiotapes is a felony,” said Gavin Patashnick, a spokesman for the Maryland state prosecutor.

Lewinsky’s testimony depicts Tripp as a woman of many obsessions. She fixated on Lewinsky’s mother and, in December, alarmed Lewinsky by suddenly starting to talk about taking a job in New York as Lewinsky then planned to do.

Tripp also appeared to be in constant fear that she would be fired from her $88,173 post as a public affairs specialist at the Pentagon. As Lewinsky recalled, “She made some off-comment that if she loses her job, she’s going to write a tell-all book.”

Tripp still worries, Goldberg said. She has asked to return to the Pentagon, but has been ordered to work at home.

“I think she’ll end up in the private sector,” Goldberg said. “She’s a highly efficient office manager.”

Times staff writers Ronald Brownstein and Robert L. Jackson contributed to this story.

Full version of video transcripts of Clinton’s testimony, supporting documents released by the House Judiciary Committee and the Starr Report are on the Times’ Web Site. Go to:

https://www.latimes.com/scandal