Tripp's Lawyer: She Didn't Set Out To Trap Clinton
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Anthony Zaccagnini
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Says Starr looking at 'wide pattern of conduct'
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, April 19) -- Linda Tripp's attorney says she did not set out to deliberately ensnare President Bill Clinton in a sex scandal and was not acting out of political motivations when she taped phone calls from Monica Lewinsky in which the former White House intern alleged an affair with the president.
"At no time did Linda ever attempt to entrap Monica to divulge the nature of her relationship with the president of the United States," said Anthony Zaccagnini in an interview Sunday on ABC's "This Week" program. "Linda did not pursue Monica. Monica pursued Linda."
Zaccagnini also described Tripp as a political independent devoted to her career in the federal service -- not as an ideologue with an anti-Clinton ax to grind.
"She has worked both in the Bush White House and in the Clinton White House. She serves the office of the president, without distinction as to who that president is," Zaccagnini said.
"She certainly has never intended to injure the president. If, however, the truth as she relates it to the grand jury does, then others have to accept responsibility for their conduct and not Linda Tripp," he said.
Tripp will likely testify within next few weeks
Zaccagnini also said that Tripp has spent "a lot" of time talking to investigators for independent counsel Ken Starr, and he said he believes Starr's probe goes well beyond Tripp's interactions with Lewinsky.
"The notion that this is just about a brief period of a relationship between Monica and Linda is a bit misleading," Zaccagnini told "This Week." "There is a wide pattern of conduct that the independent counsel's office seems to be investigating."
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Linda Tripp, left, and Monica Lewinsky
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Zaccagnini said he expects that Tripp will be called to testify within the next few weeks in front of a grand jury impaneled by Starr, who is investigating allegations that Clinton lied about his relationship with Lewinsky, or encouraged others to lie about it, during sworn testimony taken in Paula Jones' sexual harassment suit against the president.
Tripp felt Lewinsky put her in 'unbearable' position
At the center of those allegations are 19 hours of tape recordings Tripp made of her conversations with Lewinsky. The two women worked together at the Pentagon, after both were transferred there from the White House.
"There was a long period of time when Monica and Linda were, quite frankly, friends. They had a lot in common. They both used to work at the White House," Zaccagnini said. "People tend to seek out people that they have common experiences with."
But he said after they became friends and Lewinsky revealed her alleged affair with Clinton, Tripp was put in an "unbearable" situation when Lewinsky asked her not to reveal the affair if asked about it by Jones' attorneys.
Zaccagnini said Tripp already knew she was going to be subpoenaed to give a deposition in the Jones case because Newsweek had reported that she was a witness in allegations by another woman, Kathleen Willey, that she was groped by Clinton in a room off the Oval Office.
"(Lewinsky) put (Tripp) 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," Zaccagnini said. And because what she was going to reveal involved the president, she felt she had to have the "verification" that the tapes provided, he said.
"Now that 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," Zaccagnini told "This Week."
Tripp now fears Pentagon will fire her
He said Tripp now fears that she is going to be fired from her job in the Pentagon. She has been working at home since news of the tapes broke, and Zaccagnini said Pentagon officials have refused, without explanation, Tripp's requests to return to work at her office.
And Zaccagnini hinted that Tripp, though a political appointee who serves at the pleasure of the president, may take legal action if she is fired.
"She's also protected by the same laws as every other federal employee, as it relates to an individual who gives information about the conduct of their employer," he said.
Zaccagnini also said that Pentagon officials have cleared Tripp of charges that she lied on her application for a security clearance by failing to disclose a theft arrest in the 1960s.
Zaccagnini described that incident as a "prank" perpetuated by friends who put stolen jewelry in her purse. He said one of the perpetrators of the prank has come forward to back up that account.
"The judge (in the theft case) instructed her to treat this matter as if it had never happened. And to Linda Tripp, who is not a lawyer, that's tantamount to expungement. She did what she was told to do," Zaccagnini said.
He said she responded to the question on the security clearance form, asking if she had ever been arrested for a crime, "exactly how she knew it to be true at the time."
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