Ex-Starr Aides Rally to Tripp’s Defense in Taping Case

Linda Tripp was not in court but a cadre of one-time aides to ex-independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr--who used her secretly recorded audiotapes to help build a case against President Clinton--rallied to her defense Monday.

One year after Clinton’s impeachment, Tripp--extolled by supporters as a courageous whistle-blower for helping expose the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal but vilified by her critics as a treacherous friend--was in the spotlight again.

In this once-thriving mill town an hour’s drive north of the White House, a Maryland state circuit judge heard testimony on whether Tripp’s 1998 immunity agreement with Starr’s office protects her from criminal prosecution for allegedly violating a Maryland law that makes it illegal to tape a phone call without the other party’s knowledge.

The issue is critical in shaping the legal framework of Tripp’s upcoming trial on two felony wiretapping charges. Maryland state prosecutors acknowledged that their case would be severely weakened if Judge Diane O. Leasure rules that the immunity offer extended to Tripp by Starr’s aides in January 1998 is valid.

The proceedings also demonstrated that, although Clinton’s impeachment trial is long over and Starr has resigned his office, remnants of the Lewinsky scandal linger.

The judge is expected to rule on the immunity question this morning. She also is scheduled to hear a second pretrial issue centering on whether the state investigation into Tripp’s phone-taping was tainted by publicity over the Lewinsky scandal. Should that phase of the hearing proceed, Lewinsky may testify later in the week.

Tripp did not attend Monday’s hearing, disappointing television camera operators waiting anxiously in the rain outside Howard County’s small courthouse. Instead, her attorney read an affidavit that Tripp had signed, testifying that she would never have turned over the Lewinsky tapes to Starr’s office unless she thought she was protected from prosecution.

Reading Tripp’s affidavit into the record was “a succinct, direct way to get the point across” without Tripp’s appearing at the courthouse and inciting a media frenzy, said defense attorney Joseph Murtha.

Not that Tripp was altogether silent. On her personal Web site (www.lindatripp.com), she put out a lengthy statement, saying that, with Monday’s pretrial hearing, “the fight for justice begins in earnest.” She thanked her supporters and she did not mask her contempt for “the Clinton apologists,” who she said have portrayed her as “a heinous and despicable villain” who betrayed a vulnerable friend.

Echoing the sentiments she expressed on the steps of the U.S. District Courthouse in Washington in the summer of 1998, when she appealed to the public for sympathy and declared, “I’m you,” Tripp said Monday that “there is one thing even [Clinton’s supporters] cannot do. They cannot bastardize the Constitution. The framers ensured the rights of each and every citizen. When I am feeling helpless, I find myself clinging to this truth.”

Her case appeared to be bolstered by the testimony of four former aides to Starr, who, ironically, were called to the stand by Maryland state prosecutors.

Tripp triggered the investigation into the Lewinsky scandal on Jan. 12, 1998, when she called Starr’s office--anonymously, at first--to say that “a friend” had taped evidence about a White House intern who was preparing to perjure herself about her affair with President Clinton.

The Starr aides, including right-hand man Jackie Bennett, gave an hour-by-hour account of the hectic days that followed that call and their promises of immunity that resulted. Even though they were called by the opposition, defense attorney Murtha said that he believed the testimony from Starr aides actually helped his case by showing that Tripp turned over the Lewinsky tapes with the clear understanding that she would not be prosecuted.

“I think [the prosecution witnesses] clearly defined our argument,” he said.

Bennett said he was so anxious to secure the tapes after talking to Tripp by phone that he and two aides raced out to Tripp’s home in Columbia, Md., to interview her, arriving around midnight. Tripp was concerned about the prospect of being prosecuted criminally in Maryland for taping more than a dozen calls with Lewinsky, and Bennett said he assured her that she would be protected by an immunity agreement with the Office of the Independent Counsel.

“There was no federal offense that she had committed,” Bennett said.

Indeed, Stephen Binhak, a former associate prosecutor in Starr’s office who went with Bennett to Tripp’s house, testified Monday that he believed then that Tripp’s immunity agreement “would make it all but impossible” for Maryland to prosecute her.

“It was our intent to make sure she was not prosecuted,” Binhak testified.

But Maryland state prosecutors maintained that Tripp’s immunity agreement did not take effect until it was approved by a federal judge in February 1998, more than a month after Starr’s office sent Tripp a formal letter with the immunity offer.

“The state is not bound by the OIC’s promise,” said Maryland Deputy Atty. Gen. Carmen M. Shephard.

But Bennett, chief deputy to Starr until earlier this year, testified that he spoke with Howard County’s top prosecutor on Jan. 26, 1998, and that she acknowledged it would be difficult for Maryland to prosecute Tripp because of the earlier immunity agreement.