Linda Tripp at the time of the Lewinsky scandal.

Linda Tripp (born Linda Rose Carotenuto on November 24, 1949 in Jersey City, New Jersey) is an American woman who was a central figure in the Lewinsky scandal of 1998 and 1999 that led to the impeachment and subsequent acquittal of U.S. President Bill Clinton. Image File history File links Trippl. ... Image File history File links Trippl. ... November 24 is the 328th day (329th on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1949 calendar). ... Location of Jersey City within New Jersey. ... The Monica Lewinsky scandal (informally Monicagate, various ) was a political sex scandal emerging from a short-term sexual relationship between United States President Bill Clinton and a then 22-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... Depiction of the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, then President of the United States, in 1868. ... In criminal law, an acquittal is the legal result of a verdict of not guilty, or some similar end of the proceeding that terminates it with prejudice without a verdict of guilty being entered against the accused. ... The presidential seal was used by President Hayes in 1880 and last modified in 1959 by adding the 50th star for Hawaii. ... William Jefferson Bill Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. ...

Government employment history

Linda Tripp was a White House employee in the George H. W. Bush administration, and kept her job when Bill Clinton took over in 1993. During the summer of 1994 senior White House aides wanted Tripp out, so they arranged a job for her in the public affairs office in the Pentagon which gave her a raise of $20,000 per year.[1]. North façade of the White House, seen from Pennsylvania Avenue. ... George Herbert Walker Bush GCB (born June 12, 1924) was the 41st President of the United States of America serving from 1989 to 1993. ... William Jefferson Bill Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. ... 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ... The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located at 48 N. Rotary Road, Arlington, Virginia 22211 (Map). ...

On January 19, 2001, the last full day of the Clinton Administration, Linda Tripp was fired from her job in the Pentagon [2]. Tripp claimed that the firing was vindictive, but the Clinton administration countered that all political appointees like Tripp are normally asked to submit their resignation upon a new administration taking over, and those who refuse are fired. Tripp's attorneys Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, the top law firm in Washington, D.C. defending government whistle blowers, issued the following response: "The termination of Linda Tripp is vindictive, mean-spirited and wrong. President Clinton should not have ended his presidency on such a vengeful note." Tripp had retained the firm to sue the government for violating her rights under the Privacy Act of 1974 when the Clinton Administration leaked confidential details of her employment record to the press. January 19 is the 19th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year 2001. ... President Clintons Cabinet, circa 1993 Headed by President of the United States Bill Clinton, the Clinton Administation was the executive branch of the federal government of the United States from 1993 to 2001. ... Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in employment law, is one of the top firms representing whistleblowers in the United States. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

Tripp's involvement in the Lewinsky scandal

Despite an age difference of 24 years, Tripp became a close confidante of another former White House employee, Monica Lewinsky, when they both worked in the Pentagon's public affairs office. According to Tripp, they knew each other for a year and a-half before the incipient scandal began to reach its critical stage. After Lewinsky revealed to Tripp that she had had a physical relationship with President Clinton, Tripp, acting on the advice of Lucianne Goldberg, began to secretly record her phone conversations with Lewinsky while encouraging Lewinsky to document details of the relationship. Although the Clinton Administration and its allies have portrayed Tripp, for the most part successfully, as a sort of agent provocateur who waylaid an unsuspecting Lewinsky for the benefit of the Republican Party, Tripp says that her motives were mischaracterized. She claims that she was trying to protect herself from retaliation from the Clinton Administration as she was not going to lie under oath about what she knew of the affair, despite the pleas of her friend, Lewinsky, to do so. Monica Lewinsky on her U.S. Government ID Monica Samille Lewinsky (born July 23, 1973 in San Francisco) is an American woman who had an affair with President Bill Clinton, while she was working at the White House in 1995-1996. ... Lucianne Goldberg, born Lucianne Steinberger in 1935 in Virginia, is an American literary agent. ... An agent provocateur (plural: agents provocateurs) is a person assigned to provoke unrest, violence, debate, or argument by or within a group while acting as a member of the group but covertly representing the interests of another. ...

In August 1997, Newsweek's Michael Isikoff reported that Tripp had encountered Kathleen Willey coming out of the Oval Office "disheveled. Her face red and her lipstick was off." Willey alleged that Clinton groped her. Clinton's lawyer, Robert S. Bennett said in the Newsweek article that "Linda Tripp is not to be believed." [3] Michael Isikoff is an investigative journalist for the US-based magazine Newsweek. ... Kathleen Willey was a White House aide who on March 15, 1998 claimed on the TV news program 60 Minutes that she and President Bill Clinton were in his private study off the Oval Office when Clinton sexually assaulted her. ... Robert S. Bennett (born 1939) is an American attorney best known for representing President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky investigation. ...

In January 1998, Tripp gave the surreptitiously recorded tapes to then-Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Tripp disclosed to Starr that she was aware of the relationship between Lewinsky and President Clinton, that Lewinsky had executed a false affidavit denying the relationship that was submitted to the federal court in Arkansas in the Jones v. Clinton lawsuit, and that Lewinsky had attempted to suborn Tripp's perjury in the Jones v. Clinton suit to conceal the Clinton-Lewinsky relationship as well as Tripp's knowledge of the Kathleen Willey incident from the federal court. As Tripp explained, she was being solicited to commit a crime to conceal evidence in the Jones civil rights case. [4] United States Office of the Independent Counsel was an independent prosecutor — distinct from the Attorney General of the United States Department of Justice — that provided reports to the Congress under Title 28 of the United States Code, Article 595. ... Kenneth Winston Starr (born July 21, 1946) is an American lawyer and former judge who was appointed to the Office of the Independent Counsel to investigate the death of the deputy White House counsel Vince Foster and the Whitewater land transactions by President Bill Clinton. ...

Based on Tripp's tapes, Starr obtained approval from Attorney General Janet Reno and the special court overseeing the Independent Counsel to expand Starr's investigation into the Clinton-Lewinsky relationship, looking for potential incidents of perjury, to investigate Lewinsky for perjury and suborning perjury as a witness in the lawsuit Paula Jones had brought against Clinton. [5] Janet Reno (born July 21, 1938) was the 78th Attorney General of the United States (1993–2001), and was the first woman to hold that post. ... Perjury is the act of lying or making verifiably false statements on a material matter under oath or affirmation in a court of law or in any of various sworn statements in writing. ... Paula Corbin Jones (born Paula Rosalee Corbin on September 17, 1966, in Lonoke, Arkansas) was a former Arkansas state employee who sued President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment and eschewal. ...

While Tripp maintains she acted out of "patriotic duty," some Americans believe that she betrayed Lewinsky in the hopes of using her knowledge of the relationship to obtain a possible book or movie deal, neither of which has occurred as of 2006. Tripp has also claimed that she taped Lewinsky out of self-defense, as she feared retailation from the Clinton Administration. Lewinsky had assured President Clinton that she had only told Tripp about their affair (which was untrue), thus making her a target as she refused to go along with perjuring herself to protect Lewinsky and the President. 2006 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Eventually both Clinton and Lewinsky had to appear before a Washington, D.C. grand jury to answer questions, although Clinton appeared via closed circuit television. After the round of interrogation, the jurors, perhaps anticipating a profound statement, offered Lewinsky the chance to offer any last words. "I hate Linda Tripp," she said. A grand jury is a type of jury, in the common law legal system, which determines if there is enough evidence for a trial. ...

Tripp was portrayed by John Goodman in recurring Saturday Night Live sketches. Tripp liked most of Goodman's impersonations of her, except for one, which hurt her feelings [6]. John Stephen Goodman (born June 20, 1952 in Affton, Missouri) is a male Golden Globe award winner and an Emmy award nominated American actor. ... Saturday Night Live (SNL) is a weekly late night 90-minute American comedy-variety show based in New York City which has been broadcast by NBC nearly every Saturday night since its debut on October 11, 1975. ...

Indictment by the State of Maryland

Tripp was a resident of Columbia, Maryland at the time she made her surreptitious recordings of the conversations with Lewinsky, and after 49 Democrats in the Maryland Legislature signed a letter to the state prosecutor demanding that Tripp be prosecuted she was charged by state authorities with violating Maryland's wiretap law [7]. Prior to trial, the state court ruled that, due to the immunity agreements which the Independent Counsel's office entered into with Tripp, Lewinsky and others, a substantial amount of the evidence which the prosecution intended to use was inadmissible. At a pre-trial hearing the prosecution called Lewinsky as a witness to try to establish that her testimony against Tripp was untainted by the Independent Counsel investigation. However, the Maryland state court ruled that Lewinsky, who "admitted that she lied under oath in a federal proceeding and has stated that lying has been a part of her life," was not credible and Lewinsky's proposed testimony against Tripp was "bathed in impermissible taint." As a result, all charges against Tripp were dismissed on May 26, 2000 when the prosecution decided not to proceed with the trial of the case. The People Tree statue has become a symbol of Columbia, Maryland. ... Telephone tapping or Wire tapping/ Wiretapping (in US) describes the monitoring of telephone conversations by a third party, often by covert means. ... May 26 is the 146th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (147th in leap years). ... This article is about the year 2000. ...

Arrest record controversy

On March 14, 1998, it was revealed that Linda Tripp was arrested when she was 19 years old in Greenwood Lake, New York in 1969 on charges of stealing $263 in cash as well as a wristwatch worth about $600. The charges were eventually dismissed before coming to trial. [8]. Although never convicted in 1969, years later Tripp answered "no" to the question "Have you ever been either charged or arrested for a crime?" on the Department of Defense security clearance form. March 14 is the 73rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (74th in leap years) with 292 days remaining in the year. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... Greenwood Lake is a village located in Orange County, New York. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... The United States Department of Defense, abbreviated DoD or DOD and sometimes called the Defense Department, is a civilian Cabinet organization of the United States government. ...

Shortly before Tripp was scheduled to appear before the grand jury in the Lewinsky investigation, in March 1998, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, Kenneth Bacon, and his deputy, Clifford Bernath, leaked to reporter Jane Mayer of New Yorker magazine Tripp's answer to the arrest question on her security clearance form. Following the Bacon-Bernath leak to Jane Mayer, the Department of Defense leaked to the news media other confidential information from Tripp's personnel and security files. The Department of Defense Inspector General investigated the leak of Tripp's security clearance form information and found that Bacon and Bernath violated the Privacy Act, and the DoD IG concluded that Bacon and Bernath should have known that the release of information from Tripp's security file was improper. [9]

Law suit and settlement

Tripp sued the Department of Defense and the Justice Department for releasing information from her security file and employment file to the news media in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974. Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto handled Tripp's Privacy Act lawsuit. On November 3, 2003, Tripp reached a settlement with the federal government[10]. The settlement included a one-time payment of more than $595,000, a retroactive promotion, and retroactive pay at the highest salary for 1998, 1999 and 2000. She also received a pension and was cleared to work for the federal government again. Her rights to remain part of a class action lawsuit against the government were also preserved. The United States Department of Defense, abbreviated DoD or DOD and sometimes called the Defense Department, is a civilian Cabinet organization of the United States government. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in employment law, is one of the top firms representing whistleblowers in the United States. ... November 3 is the 307th day of the year (308th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 58 days remaining. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

George H. W. Bush affair controversy

It has been alleged that Linda Tripp was involved in leaking information about an affair between former President George H. W. Bush (41) and a staffer named Jennifer Fitzgerald. It has also been speculated that this may explain why she was not rehired to her old White House position despite calls from many conservatives to Bush's son, President George W. Bush, to do so [11]. However, Tripp has publicly denied this allegation as "ludicrous" and "a complete fabrication." [12] George Herbert Walker Bush GCB (born June 12, 1924) was the 41st President of the United States of America serving from 1989 to 1993. ... Jennifer Fitzgerald, born Jennifer Ann Isobel Patteson-Knight (in 1932), is a retired U.S. diplomat who allegedly had a long-term affair with President George H.W. Bush from the time he was United States ambassador to China which continued while he was Vice President and then President. ... Conservatism is a political philosophy that generally favors free markets, traditional values and strong foreign defense. ... George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the 43rd and current President of the United States, inaugurated on January 20, 2001. ...

Life since the Lewinsky scandal

Since the Lewinsky scandal Tripp has moved to Northern Virginia, had extensive plastic surgery, married German architect Dieter Rausch (a longtime sweetheart) in 2004 and opened with her new husband a year-round Christmas shop, called the Christmas Sleigh, in Middleburg, Virginia. Northern Virginia is a regional area consisting of Arlington, Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun, Prince William, and Stafford counties and the independent cities of Alexandria, Falls Church, Fairfax, Manassas, and Manassas Park. ... Plastic surgery is a specialty that uses surgical techniques to improve the appearance and function of patients bodies. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday that marks the traditional birthdate of Jesus of Nazareth. ... Motto: Semel Et Semper Coordinates: State Virginia County Loudon Mayor Betsy Davis Area    - City 1. ...

In a December 1, 2003, appearance with Larry King on Larry King Live, Tripp told of her battle with breast cancer. On the subject of her successful invasion of privacy lawsuit against the federal government, Tripp claimed that she actually came out behind financially, due to attorneys' fees and the derailment of her government career. She also claimed that the Clinton Administration's violations of her privacy were not equivalent to her violations of Monica Lewinsky's privacy as the Clinton Administration's leaking of her employment history was illegal. Furthermore, Lewinsky had asked her to lie under oath in the Paula Jones lawsuit against Bill Clinton, something she had refused to do. She told King that that she only began taping her conversations with Lewinsky, whom she had known for 18 months, a mere eight weeks before she was scheduled to be deposed in the Jones lawsuit. Tripp has earlier said she taped the conversations to prevent the Clinton Administration from retaliating against her since she had decided not to lie under oath. [13] Larry King hosts a nightly television program on CNN. Larry King (born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger on November 19, 1933) is an award-winning American broadcaster. ... Larry King Live is a nightly CNN interview program hosted by broadcaster and writer Larry King. ... Breast cancer is cancer of breast tissue. ... Monica Lewinsky on her U.S. Government ID Monica Samille Lewinsky (born July 23, 1973 in San Francisco) is an American woman who had an affair with President Bill Clinton, while she was working at the White House in 1995-1996. ... William Jefferson Bill Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. ...

External links

• Larry King Live Transcript of December 1, 2003 interview