Conservatives Try to Prove Clintonites Smeared Tripp

Pursuing an all-but-forgotten loose end of the Monica S. Lewinsky investigation, a conservative legal group is taking pains to prove in court that the Clinton administration deliberately smeared Linda Tripp early last year and then lied about its action, which could constitute a crime.

The conservative organization, Judicial Watch, is getting support from a federal judge who believes the matter is “cause for concern” and has said there are signs of “potential misconduct.”

The issue involves the release of confidential information by Pentagon officials from Tripp’s security-clearance file, an action officials concede was improper. But it was an innocent mistake, they say.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a frequent critic of the administration, is hearing the matter as an off-shoot of “Filegate,” the name given to the FBI’s transfer to the White House of hundreds of files of former Republican appointees, which became a GOP issue three years ago.

As it slowly develops, the case illustrates how a private organization with political motivations, like Judicial Watch, can use federal court processes to probe matters that government investigators--with limited time and resources--may deem unworthy of pursuit.

It is a technique that Larry Klayman, the hard-driving, acerbic lawyer who heads Judicial Watch, has developed to near perfection. Klayman also has been digging into Commerce Department files on overseas trade missions allegedly used to raise campaign contributions for President Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign.

Following up on Filegate inquiries launched by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr and Senate investigators, Klayman filed an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against federal officials responsible for misusing FBI files of some former Reagan and Bush administration appointees. One of his clients is Tripp, the former confidant and onetime Pentagon associate of ex-White House intern Lewinsky, whose affair with Clinton led to his impeachment.

Not only was Tripp’s FBI file among those examined by White House security officials, but the Pentagon last year released potentially damaging information about her from her personnel folder--just weeks after she had blown the whistle on the Clinton-Lewinsky relationship.

Responding to a request from a reporter for the New Yorker magazine, Defense officials disclosed that Tripp, in an apparent violation of reporting rules, had failed to tell superiors about a shoplifting arrest in 1969.

It was later learned that the arrest resulted from the prank of a friend, and that the charge was reduced from larceny to loitering.

As to sworn statements that Judicial Watch obtained from Pentagon officials, Lamberth said recently that “circumstantial evidence” may exist “of a White House connection to . . . misuse of government files.” Pentagon brass deny any connection.

The judge said he would allow Judicial Watch to seek more Defense Department records and testimony to support a claim, in the judge’s words, “that the Department of Defense has attempted to cover up political motivations behind the release of Tripp’s information.”

Lamberth found it suspicious that Defense Secretary William S. Cohen “attempted to dispel accusations of political involvement by emphasizing to the public that [an official] who is not a political appointee was the person who released Tripp’s information to the media,” when a high-ranking appointee actually acknowledged giving the order.

That appointee was Kenneth Bacon, assistant secretary of Defense for public affairs, who said in a deposition he had asked his deputy, Clifford Bernath, to get data from Tripp’s background file in response to the New Yorker query.

Lamberth said his suspicions are further deepened because Bernath admitted he deleted relevant computer files while the matter was under scrutiny by Starr’s office and by the court.

Starr’s office reportedly has dropped the matter. Besides Judicial Watch, the Defense Department’s inspector general is looking into the case.