Looking for Job Security? Take a Lesson From Tripp

One of those who stands to benefit from President Clinton’s having survived impeachment may be none other than Linda Tripp.

Had Clinton been removed, incoming President Al Gore, in the normal course of moving people around in his new administration, might have seen fit to move her out of her unusual $90,000-a-year “working from home” job with the Pentagon’s public affairs department.

As a political appointee, not a civil servant, Tripp works at the president’s “pleasure.” She could be fired by Defense Secretary William S. Cohen at any moment for any reason--or for no reason at all. But it doesn’t appear that she’s going anywhere any time soon.

Some senior Pentagon officials, who are said to have mulled changing her work situation, concluded nothing could be done without having it appear that they were retaliating on Clinton’s behalf.

Pentagon officials closest to her case, however, hew to previous statements that Tripp remains on “flexiplace” and the situation continues to be reviewed. Tripp says she’s been forced to work from her home because the Pentagon “has forbidden me from working at my desk and has given me a make-work assignment away from the office.”

Thre is another sticking point ensuring her continued tenure at home: The Pentagon’s inspector general and independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr apparently are still looking into that flap over Cohen’s public affairs chief Kenneth H. Bacon’s having revealed derogatory information from Tripp’s personnel files.

So for now, certainly as long as Bill Clinton is in office, Tripp looks quite secure in her job. After Clinton leaves, the question will be whether a future president will decide to keep her on.