Word: tripp
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...counter that the notion that the independent counsel had no right to investigate the Lewinsky case because he gained jurisdiction on the basis of a false statement is absurd. At the time, they point out, there was no way of knowing the truthfulness of the statement by Monica to Tripp that she would not sign her affidavit until Jordan produced a job. And regardless of what prompts an investigation, facts discovered in the process of proving or disproving the original allegation are fair game. The argument, says a Starr ally, "fits the pattern of trying to politicize a legal case...
...culpable is Tripp? Lewinsky did not need much encouragement to throw herself at Clinton--as Monica admits, she was in love and obsessed--but it was her bad luck that her adult confidant worked so hard to fuel the obsession. As Lewinsky said in her testimony, "obviously there's work that I need to do on myself." But instead of helping Lewinsky do that work--perhaps even talking some sense into her--Tripp went to work...
...Tripp's lawyers deny she was an agent provocateur. They say she made the tapes to protect herself--if she told the truth about the affair in a Jones deposition, she'd need some evidence--and that she wanted Lewinsky to keep the stained dress as protection against potential White House charges that Monica was a delusional stalker. Far from trying to set Lewinsky up, they say, Tripp was trying to shield her. If she pointed out the storytelling benefits of a presidential affair, she also called the relationship "sick" and urged Monica to end it. And she asked Monica...
There is no doubt that Tripp's actions were at times contradictory and that her motives will remain forever murky. Depending on whom you believe, Tripp did what she did in hopes of landing a tell-all book deal, or out of revenge against her own adulterous father, or out of spite for the libertines who took over from the Bush Administration, for which she had worked as a secretary--or all of the above...
...although they will likely find that boiling down what she did into sound bites is more difficult than attacking Newt & Co. for partisan unfairness. (Look for Clinton's more verbally dexterous defenders, such as the Judiciary committee's Barney Frank of Massachusetts, to take the lead on Tripp...