Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Aired April 5, 1998 - 10:00 p.m. ET CORRECTED COPY THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANNOUNCER: Now on IMPACT, an exclusive interview with the book agent at the heart of allegations about a White House sex scandal. LUCIANNE GOLDBERG, LITERARY AGENT: She said, well, a friend of mine, a woman I work with at the Pentagon, is Clinton's girlfriend. ANNOUNCER: The agent who told Linda Tripp to make the tapes, the tapes that launched a scandal. ART HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What could you tell us that you did hear? GOLDBERG: It referred to evidence of sex with the president. ANNOUNCER: Also on IMPACT, a man returns to Selma to confront the ghosts of his past. CLARK OLSEN: Ghosts in the sense of my experience of utter terror. ANNOUNCER: Ghosts from when the nation was at war with itself. (SINGING): All the way from Selma town. ANNOUNCER: Ghosts of a murder long forgotten, a murder that changed history, a murder still unsolved today. C. OLSEN: He was found not guilty. I believe he is guilty. ANNOUNCER: Finally, on IMPACT, the cruise industry on a course for fun and profits. UNIDENTIFIED TRAVEL AGENT: This year is going to be an absolute record year for the cruise industry. ANNOUNCER: Today's cruise companies pump up the profits by updating their image. LIZ SUTTON, TRAVEL AGENT: When I get a person that says to me, "Oh, Liz, I don't want to do a cruise. I've done a cruise before." I'll often say, "How long ago?" ANNOUNCER: IMPACT, CNN and "Time" on special assignment, with Bernard Shaw in Washington, D.C. and Stephen Frazier in Atlanta. IMPACT, a collaboration of two of the world's leading news organizations -- CNN and "Time." From Washington, D.C., here is Bernard Shaw. (END VIDEO CLIP) BERNARD SHAW, CO-HOST: Welcome to IMPACT. Tonight, a first-hand account from the heart of the investigation of President Clinton. Paula Jones' suit against Mr. Clinton was dismissed, but the president's legal problems are far from over. Independent counsel Ken Starr says he'll press on. His latest investigation started with Linda Tripp's tapes of former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Tripp won't talk, but we talked tonight to the woman who told Tripp to tape. IMPACT's Art Harris now with Lucianne Goldberg's exclusive tale of why and how those recordings were made. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) GOLDBERG: She said, a friend of mine, a woman I work with at the Pentagon, is Clinton's girlfriend. And she started to explain this, what I found, hair-raising tale about this kid. HARRIS (voice-over): Lucianne Goldberg describing last summer's phone call from Linda Tripp, the former White House secretary. They had become good friends while working on a book idea, Tripp had once proposed, disparaging the Clinton White House. GOLDBERG: I said, had you, do you have any proof? Do you have letters? Do you have pictures? Do you have like a second source that has, you know, seen anything? And she said, no. And I said, well, how often do you talk to this woman? And she said, every day, non- stop, at home, before dinner, after dinner, early in the morning. She said, I talk to her all the time. And I said, well, I can't see any other thing for you to do to prove that you're telling the truth, is to tape these phone calls. HARRIS (on camera): Get Monica Lewinsky on tape? GOLDBERG: Just buy a cheap tape recorder and put it on your phone, and when she calls you at home, get a tape of it so you can prove that you talked to this girl and that this is the truth. HARRIS (voice-over): Goldberg says Tripp was scared and angry. Just weeks before, Clinton lawyer Bob Bennett said Linda Tripp was not to be believed. "Newsweek" had quoted Tripp describing Kathleen Willey as "happy and joyful" after telling Tripp Clinton had kissed and fondled her in the White House. GOLDBERG: Having been called a liar publicly would mean anything she might say in the future, they would point to the president's lawyer and say, well, she can't be believed. HARRIS: Tripp was also worried "Newsweek" reporter Michael Isikoff, who talked to her for the Willey story, might be on to Monica Lewinsky. GOLDBERG: She said, I need a friend I can talk to somebody. Michael Isikoff is after me and he may know more than I think he knows. HARRIS: Tripp was also afraid because she knew too much. She knew Willey. She was friends with Lewinsky. And if she got subpoenaed in the Paula Jones case, she would have to tell what she knew about two women and the president. At first, Goldberg says, Tripp balked at taping her friend. GOLDBERG: And she didn't want to do it. HARRIS (on camera): Why? GOLDBERG: She said, I feel sleazy doing it. I don't want to do that. HARRIS (voice-over): Goldberg said she'd better reconsider. GOLDBERG: And I said, well, OK, they'll trash you. They'll destroy you. HARRIS: So Tripp began taping. And to shore up Tripp's credibility, Goldberg also advised her to talk to the "Newsweek" reporter again and, this time, tell him about Monica Lewinsky. (on camera): October, 1997, it was about 6:00 p.m. when Tripp, Goldberg and Isikoff met here at Goldberg's Washington apartment for about an hour. Tripp brought the tapes, but the reporter didn't listen to them. Mike Isikoff tells IMPACT, he didn't want to be party to any taping. He did listen carefully to Tripp's story, though, because he had been hearing about a mysterious White House intern and the president. Now, for the first time, he had a name -- Monica Lewinsky. As for Goldberg, now she had copies of two tapes. (voice-over): Tapes she brought here, to her New York apartment, where Goldberg brokers book deals, a former political operative who once spied for Nixon. HARRIS (on camera): Nixon, Goldberg, in a presidential trip? GOLDBERG: Yeah. That was from the McGovern plane. HARRIS (voice-over): When you were a spy? GOLDBERG: Yeah. (LAUGHTER) HARRIS (on camera): What was that like? GOLDBERG: It was fun! Food was terrible. You call up the best file for us. We plotters and schemers and vast right wing conservative spies, is this one here. HARRIS (voice-over): Goldberg is now an unabashed Clinton basher. GOLDBERG: All righty. HARRIS: She dines on political gossip from her New York lair. (on camera): Some critics are painting you as a book agent provocateur. GOLDBERG: Oh, well. It makes a good copy, but it's not true. HARRIS: Listen, Goldberg, right wing operative, former Nixon operative... GOLDBERG: Right. HARRIS: ... spy on the McGovern plane. GOLDBERG: Right, wife, mother, damn good cook, good literary agent, good friend, and, you know, all around decent gal. HARRIS (voice-over): A conservative gal who sells fact and fiction. The book proposal she'd once worked on with Tripp went nowhere, but this time when Tripp called, Goldberg figured, book deal or not, Tripp needed protection. Then Goldberg listened to the tapes and heard Tripp and Lewinsky talking about an affair both the president and Lewinsky have since denied under oath. (on camera): You've called the tapes, quote, "shocking beyond belief." GOLDBERG: Yes. HARRIS: Why? GOLDBERG: Because they are about a young 23, 24-year-old girl having a sexual relationship with the president of the United States in the Oval Office. Now, I'm sorry. I find that shocking. HARRIS: What could you tell us that you did hear? Sex with the president? GOLDBERG: It referred to, yeah, evidence of sex with the president. HARRIS: Oral sex? GOLDBERG: Yes. The tapes will come out someday and you can hear all of it. HARRIS: Believable? GOLDBERG: Oh, of course. HARRIS: Why? How? GOLDBERG: I know that Monica Lewinsky was having an affair with Bill Clinton. I can't prove it. Linda Tripp can prove it, she has the tapes. HARRIS (voice-over): Tapes that portray Lewinsky as the other woman, who was a little more than a heartbreak kid. (on camera): What is the tone of Monica Lewinsky? GOLDBERG: Sort of semi-hysterical when she's talking about him. You know, girl in distress. HARRIS: Girl in love? GOLDBERG: Yeah, I suppose. Yeah. Oh, yeah, she's in love, yeah. HARRIS: Could it have been a fantasy? GOLDBERG: No, absolutely not. HARRIS (voice-over): Monica Lewinsky crying on the shoulder of Linda Tripp, who saw herself as a big sister. GOLDBERG: The thing that Monica was going through with the president not seeing her and not taking her calls, and she just said to me, that poor girl, that poor girl, because this kid's heart was breaking. She was in love with a married man and talking to her girlfriend about how painful it was. HARRIS (on camera): To be the other woman? GOLDBERG: To be the other woman. And Linda felt very sorry for her. HARRIS: The tapes portray Lewinsky as close to the edge, telling Tripp the president had dumped her in the spring of '96, that he wanted to be, quote, "just friends." Still, Lewinsky was working hard on a transfer back to the White House, asking Clinton's secretary, Betty Currie, to check on her request. She was also sending love letters to the president, hoping Currie would put them on his desk. What did Linda say about the president's secretary Betty Currie? GOLDBERG: She told me that if anything ever happened, that they would use Betty Currie, or I should say, he would use Betty Currie as a cover. HARRIS (voice-over): Those familiar with Lewinsky tell IMPACT, she studied Clinton's travel schedule to plot White House visits. Lewinsky told Tripp she was hurt White House staffers had branded her a stalker, clinging to a fading affair with the president. As for Tripp... GOLDBERG: I think the relationship bothered her a great deal. HARRIS (on camera): Why? GOLDBERG: Because it was the president of the United States, because -- and you know, a really weird concept here. It was adultery. Now, I know we're not suppose to be shocked by that. I happen to feel that way, but I'm just this old square. Linda is a lot younger than I am, I think, feels that way too. HARRIS (voice-over): Linda Tripp, a divorced mother of two, 48 years old, who took Lewinsky under her wing at the Pentagon where both had been transferred from the Clinton White House. Tripp had worked there under Bush, but came down with a severe case of culture shock under Clinton. Monica Lewinsky made Tripp's fever spike. GOLDBERG: And it was also messing with this girl's head. And she kept saying to her, you've got to get on with your life, get on with your life, get on with your life. And she couldn't. HARRIS: While Lewinsky poured out her heart to Tripp, Tripp was afraid of losing her job. Then came the breaking point: subpoenas in December from Paula Jones' lawyers. Now, Lewinsky and Tripp faced telling the truth under oath. Tripp took her story and her tapes to the feds. GOLDBERG: She personally was asked to obstruct justice, herself, and she can testify to that. She was a good team player until the team asked her to lie. And she was not going to lie for anybody's team. HARRIS (on camera): Who did she tell you asked her to lie? GOLDBERG: Monica Lewinsky asked her to lie. HARRIS: How? GOLDBERG: By relaying the message that she should lie. HARRIS: Deny? GOLDBERG: Deny, deny, deny. HARRIS: Deny the Willey incident? GOLDBERG: Deny whatever they were going to tell her to deny. HARRIS: Deny anything? Deny it happened between Monica and the president? GOLDBERG: Deny. You don't know anything about it. HARRIS: Now, Linda Tripp has tapes that Lucianne Goldberg says will prove your client obstructed justice. BILL GINSBURG, LEWINSKY'S ATTORNEY: I don't believe anything that Lucianne Goldberg says. And I believe that what Lucianne Goldberg says is from the perspective of someone who doesn't understand the law and who is trying to build a case for her book. HARRIS (voice-over): January here at The Ritz-Carlton, the big sting. Tripp gets wired by agents for independent counsel Ken Starr and turns the tapes on her unwitting friend Monica Lewinsky. Later that day, Goldberg's last call from Tripp. GOLDBERG: I got a frantic phone call from Linda saying that she had gotten the tape that she was wired for, that Starr wired her for, and then getting wired by the FBI. It's not fun. It's very scary stuff. HARRIS: Detractors call Tripp a traitor or worse. Goldberg says her friend just felt trapped by Lewinsky. GOLDBERG: So who betrayed who here? If you were counselling a friend to do something that can send them to jail, a friend who has two children, no husband, and a good job she doesn't want to quit, and your boyfriend can fire her without cause, and you're telling her to put her whole life at risk, and she tape records you telling her that, who betrayed whom? You can't make a book out of it, but you certainly can make a case. And that's my case for Linda. (END VIDEOTAPE) SHAW: Linda Tripp gets to state her own case soon. She may testify before Ken Starr's grand jury as early as this week. -- Two rules in life: 1. Don't tell people everything you know. 2. Subscribe/Unsubscribe, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the body of the message enter: subscribe/unsubscribe law-issues