Tripp’s Motives Scrutinized

WASHINGTON —  Linda Tripp’s now-famous tapes were still under wraps on Jan. 12 when she anxiously huddled in a law office a few blocks from the White House and made an eye-popping request of her private attorney: She wanted help catching President Clinton in an illicit affair.

Specifically, she wanted to surreptitiously record a meeting with a former White House intern, Monica S. Lewinsky, to supplement 20 hours of secretly taped telephone conversations she already had with the young woman.

Tripp wanted her attorney to wire her for the meeting, which was set up for the next day at a hotel bar, according to sources familiar with these events.

But the lawyer, already concerned by her tales of sexual intrigue in the Oval Office, refused. Tripp fired him and took her request to someone more receptive to the idea: independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, who was already more than three years into a wide-ranging investigation of Clinton and his administration.

Since the revelation of the “sting” of Lewinsky last week, Tripp has portrayed herself as “an insignificant part” of the controversy--someone who happened upon misdeeds, feared that she would become entangled and turned to authorities.

But even before the White House launched a counteroffensive this week blaming a “vast right-wing conspiracy” for the allegations, questions have arisen about Tripp’s full role and motives.

Newly Disclosed Associations

The questions are the result of Tripp’s newly disclosed associations with persons and organizations actively opposed to the president. Now, further piquing curiosity is a fuller chronology emerging of the arrangements for the taping--showing that it was Tripp, not prosecutors, who first proposed and set up the sting, contrary to previous suggestions.

Tripp’s tapes may well be what she says they are--candid exchanges between two friends discussing an affair one of them is having.

However, the newer disclosures are, in the eyes of some skeptics, raising another possibility: that of an embittered former White House aide who was seeking an opportunity to strike back at a president she loathed, and who used a younger, and perhaps exaggeration-prone, friend to do so.

As the investigation moves forward, the tapes in which Lewinsky claims she had sexual relations with Clinton in the White House and that he attempted to conceal the relationship are expected to be a central element in any possible case against him. He could be vulnerable to a perjury charge, stemming from his recent denial under oath, in connection with an unrelated sexual-harassment suit, that he had had affairs with Lewinsky and several other women.

Tripp’s role in making the tapes could bear upon whether the contents are considered believable or alternately manipulated or coaxed.

Tripp was no fan of the Clinton White House, but she was no right-wing extremist either, according to some people who know her. A longtime White House employee and registered independent, she had sniped about some of her bosses in the George Bush presidency as well, they say. More than anything, some close to her say, she was motivated by a sense of self-importance far grander than her job title.

An executive secretary, her resume boasts of her access to Cabinet secretaries, her role in preparing speeches for the president and her important work in White House crises.

She was embittered, a former administration lawyer said, when she was passed over for a promotion in the Clinton White House. She also resented being transferred in 1994 to the Pentagon, after she testified before Congress about suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of former Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster. At the Pentagon, she wound up in the same office as Lewinsky.

James A. Moody, Tripp’s current attorney, said that his client bears no grudge against Clinton. “She has no ax to grind of any sort,” said Moody.

Moreover, he said that Tripp’s taping was not motivated by a desire to sell a tell-all book about the Clinton White House, as some have alleged. He said that such a proposal had died two years ago--well before she began secretly recording Lewinsky.

But it was Tripp’s New York literary agent, Lucianne S. Goldberg, a self-described Clinton hater--who encouraged Tripp to secretly tape Lewinsky. Goldberg insists that raw politics was never a motivation for recording and publicizing Lewinsky’s account of sex with the president.

Goldberg said she told Tripp that, without documentation, nobody would ever believe her account of Lewinsky’s story. She expected to be asked about her knowledge of Clinton’s affairs in connection with the sexual-harassment suit filed by an Arkansas woman, Paula Corbin Jones. Both Lewinsky and Tripp were subpoenaed in that case.

Robert S. Bennett, Clinton’s attorney in that lawsuit, earlier had publicly branded Tripp as unbelievable after she was quoted in Newsweek describing a White House scene of a woman emerging from a room after allegedly being groped by the president.

Goldberg Downplays Idea of Tripp Book

Goldberg downplayed the idea of doing a book with Tripp in an interview this week, but the president of a conservative publishing house, Regnery, told the Washington Post on Tuesday that Goldberg had approached the company with a book proposal for Tripp about the Clinton White House for as much as $500,000. One chapter was to be titled “The President’s Women.”

Goldberg had previously tried to sell books by a woman who claimed a long affair with Clinton and by Arkansas state troopers with stories of womanizing by then-Gov. Clinton. The Tripp proposal never went anywhere.

Goldberg said the taping was also intended to benefit Lewinsky. If Lewinsky ever decided to tell of her affair with Clinton, Goldberg said, there would be proof she told a friend about it at the time.

In the taped conversations, Tripp is heard suggesting that she has no interest in causing her friend Lewinsky any trouble. Rather, she repeatedly expresses concern that she will be forced to reveal Lewinsky’s affair to Jones’ attorneys, who were trying to document a pattern of Clinton making sexual advances to women.

“I’m being a sh--ty friend and that’s the last thing I want to do because I won’t lie,” Tripp says according to a transcript of the tapes released by Newsweek. “How do you think that makes me feel?”

Tripp knew the tape was rolling as she said those words, and as the tapes are reviewed, different people will undoubtedly attach different motivations to them. Was it a genuine expression of concern?

Lewinsky Said to Feel Betrayed by Tripp

Lewinsky’s attorney, William H. Ginsburg, says Lewinsky feels betrayed by Tripp.

“Some friend!” said Peter Krauser, chairman of the Democratic Party in Maryland.

When Tripp’s personal attorney, Kirby Behre, who declined comment for this story, would not help her with more secret taping, Tripp reached out to Goldberg to find a new lawyer and the book agent called around. Word eventually reached New York attorney George T. Conway III, a conservative Republican who had helped the Jones camp with its Supreme Court case against Clinton. He in turn recommended Moody, who has done legal work in conservative circles.

Moody has been handling a lawsuit by the Landmark Legal Foundation, a nonprofit legal group. The group is suing the Internal Revenue Service for alleged harassment of GOP organizations by the Clinton administration.

Conway, Moody and Starr--the Whitewater prosecutor whose conservative credentials have been frequently criticized by the White House--are all members of the Federalist Society, an organization of conservative and libertarian lawyers based in Washington.

But all three men say that is a far cry from a right-wing conspiracy.

“I’m not a Republican or a right-winger,” Moody said. “I’m not a conservative. I’m a small ‘l’ libertarian. I’m more impressed with Clinton than Reagan.”

Times staff writers Richard A. Serrano, Robert L. Jackson and Mary Curtius contributed to this story.

INSIDE

* PANETTA: Lewinsky case is latest setback to possible Panetta race for governor. A3

* STONEWALL: White House plugs flow of information. A11

* MEDIA DOUBTS: Fairness of stories questioned. A10

* ART OF DENIAL: President Clinton has available an entire arsenal of denial tactics. E1

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Tripp’s Timeline

Linda Tripp is a longtime civil service employee who entered the spotlight with revelations that she made tapes of a former intern discussing alleged sexual encounters between the intern and the president.

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PERSONAL

Age: 48

Family: Divorced from Lt. Col. Bruce M. Tripp in 1992. Two children, Ryan, 22, and Allison, 18.

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WORK HISTORY

1972: Begin civil service career as an Army dependent wife, following her husband from one assignment to the another and taking a variety of office positions with the military.

1991-92: Special assistant and executive assistant in the George Bush White House. According to her resume, “On a daily basis, interacted with the president’s senior staff, campaign officials, congressmen, senators, cabinet secretaries and members of the diplomatic community.”

1993-94: After being tabbed as a staff member who could help ensure a smooth transition between administrations, served as confidential assistant to former White House Counsel Bernard W. Nussbaum until his resingation in April, 1994. Described the post as “a highly sensitive position during a volatile year . . . “

Current job: Based at the Pentagon, she heads a program that provides tours of U.S. military bases to prominent people outside the military (annual salary: $88,173). Has been working from home in Columbia, Md., since she was publicly identified as a key player in the furor surrounding President Clinton.