Reprinted from The Washington Times , 5am -- April 20, 1998
Tripp's lawyer denounces 'vilification'
By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
In his first public remarks since the White House sex-and-lies scandal broke, the attorney for Linda R. Tripp yesterday charged that President Clinton's supporters have waged a campaign of "vilification" against his client, and he denied that she betrayed her onetime friend Monica Lewinsky by secretly taping their private conversations.
In a lengthy interview on ABC's "This Week," Anthony Zaccagnini said both he and Mrs. Tripp, whose tapes triggered the probe into a possible sexual relationship between Miss Lewinsky and the president, fear she will be fired from her Pentagon job.
"At no time did Linda ever attempt to entrap Monica to divulge the nature of her relationship with the president of the United States. That simply did not happen," said Mr. Zaccagnini.
Separately, John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, which is financing Paula Jones' sexual misconduct lawsuit against Mr. Clinton, confirmed yesterday a report in The Washington Times that Mrs. Jones and her husband, Steven, would settle the case without getting a dime if Mr. Clinton would acknowledge being in the hotel room with Mrs. Jones and saying, "I was wrong. I am sorry."
"All she wants is her honor back. And I think if that happens, the case would be over, yes," Mr. Whitehead said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Mr. Zaccagnini said Mrs. Tripp has been "categorized as a betrayer in this instance, and that simply did not happen."
"Linda did not pursue Monica," he added. "Monica pursued Linda. She put her in an untenable situation. She told her information that just was simply unbearable. She put her in a position where she had to make two choices: to tell the truth or to tell a lie. And Linda has chosen to tell the truth."
Mrs. Tripp delivered 20 hours of secret tapes to independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr in which Miss Lewinsky, a former White House intern, described an 18-month sexual affair she said she had with Mr. Clinton --and his efforts to have her deny the relationship.
The tapes and the so-called "talking points" Miss Lewinsky gave Mrs. Tripp, which instructed her how to answer questions from attorneys for Paula Jones, are at the heart of a grand jury's sex-and-lies probe of the president.
Mrs. Tripp has been cooperating with federal investigators but has not yet testified before the grand jury. In the interview yesterday, Mr. Zaccagnini predicted she will testify in a "matter of weeks, not months."
He said Mrs. Tripp could not have remained silent about what Miss Lewinsky described to her, given that "publicly, she had been labeled a liar by the president's attorney" when she told of an incident in 1993, in which Kathleen E. Willey, a former White House volunteer, emerged from the Oval Office disheveled, with her lipstick smeared, and said she'd been groped by Mr. Clinton.
"Couple that with the fact that she knew that, once her name had been identified in an article in Newsweek, identifying her as a contemporaneous, corroborating witness with the Kathleen Willey incident, she knew that she was going to be subpoenaed by the Paula Jones attorneys. In fact, they contacted her and indicated to her that they were going to subpoena her to testify," said Mr. Zaccagnini.
Mrs. Jones' attorneys were eager to talk to Mrs. Tripp about the Willey incident, since they were trying to establish a pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Clinton.
In her suit, Mrs. Jones accused Mr. Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, of exposing himself and of urging her to perform oral sex in a Little Rock, Ark., hotel room in May 1991.
On April 1, a federal judge in Little Rock dismissed Mrs. Jones' lawsuit. But Mrs. Jones announced last week that she is appealing the ruling.
On ABC, Mr. Zaccagnini strenuously denied Mrs. Tripp was motivated by any political animus toward Mr. Clinton. He called her a political "independent," who had worked in the White House during the Bush administration and was kept on by the Clinton administration.
"She certainly has never intended to injure the president of the United States. If, however, the truth, as she relates it to the grand jury, does [injure Mr. Clinton] then others have to accept responsibility for their conduct, and not Linda Tripp," he said.
Mr. Zaccagnini said his client's decision to tell the truth "has put her in a tremendously tough situation.
"She is now the subject of vilification by all the supporters of the president. This is an unfair vilification. Linda Tripp is merely telling the truth, and for that she has suffered her consequences," he said.
Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes, who appeared on CNN's "Late Edition," issued a quick rebuttal.
"I don't think the White House has been vilifying her," he said.
Mr. Zaccagnini said his client believes she will be fired from the Pentagon because of her role in the probe.
Asked about that yesterday, a Pentagon spokesman, U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Cooper, said, "She's still working for us [as a public affairs specialist].
"She's still on the flexi-place program," which, he said, allows her to work at home.
Mrs. Tripp has worked from her suburban Maryland home since the Lewinsky controversy erupted in mid-January. But Mr. Zaccagnini said that she twice has asked to return to her former position at the Pentagon, but that the department has refused.
"She's preparing a booklet that tells them how to run the program she used to run," said Mr. Zaccagnini.
On another matter, he adamantly denied rumors that Mrs. Tripp wrote the mysterious three-page "talking points" memo she says Miss Lewinsky gave her. He said that she doesn't know who did write it, but that she has no reason to believe Miss Lewinsky was the author.
The "talking points" urged Mrs. Tripp to file an affidavit in the Jones case that backed away from her account of Mrs. Willey's claim that she'd been fondled by Mr. Clinton. The document also urged Mrs. Tripp to say that Miss Lewinsky was lying when she said she performed oral sex on the president.Copyright 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
Reprinted with permission of
The Washington Times.
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