| -Caveat Lector-
MEDIUM RARE By Jim Rarey September 25, 1999 MORE ON LINDA TRIPP-WHAT COULD SHE KNOW? The answer to the question above (what could she know?) is plenty, not just about Waco, but a whole range of so-called White House scandals. In an earlier article of 9/15/99 (Linda Tripp:Key to Waco?) this writer posed the question, "Is Tripp a patriot who finally ‘had enough’ or an intelligence operative who was forced to surface by Clinton’s heavy handed tactics in covering up his compulsive sexual escapades?" This article will not attempt to repeat all the information that led to that question. Suffice to say that Tripp’s stint with the Delta Force in a classified position, which could not be divulged publicly, and her association with Lucianne Goldberg, whose background has ties to intelligence agencies (mainly through her husband) were major considerations in arriving at that possibility. That information was culled from news reports in the media (some of which turns out to not have been completely accurate). The following information comes from sworn testimony given by Tripp in a deposition of over 800 pages in a civil suit (downloaded from the Judicial Watch web site). The lawsuit was filed by Judicial Watch on behalf of Cara Leslie Alexander and others against the FBI, Defense Department, Bernard Nussbaum, the Executive Office of the President and Hillary Clinton. The substance of the suit is criminal misuse of FBI files. Linda Tripp, although not involved in the lawsuit, was deposed as a witness for the plaintiffs. In her testimony, Tripp outlined the following chronology of her tenure in the White House. While at Delta Force she was invited to take a position in the White House by then Vice President George Bush, which she declined. After she left Delta Force (reason unstated) she served briefly, for eight months, as a stenographer in the Pentagon. She was then again invited by now President Bush to take a job as "senior floater" in the White House, which she accepted. After Bush lost the 1992 election, Tripp took vacation time and says, "I returned to work and either the first day of my return or the second I was asked to come work in the President’s (Clinton’s) office." Although "on paper" assigned to work under Marcia Scott at the Executive Office Building, in actuality she was in the White House Executive Office working with Nancy Hernreich, Bruce Lindsay and President Clinton. After about three months in that position (up to April of 1993) she was invited by Vince Foster to take a newly created position in the Office of Legal Counsel reporting directly to Chief Legal Counsel Bernard Nussbaum. The position entailed supervising the "outer office" staff and included the "securing" of classified documents, usually in a safe located in Nussbaum’s office. Tripp was one of a limited number of persons who had the combination to that safe. Before taking the job, a somewhat curious paperwork shuffle occurred. Tripp relates, "Bruce Lindsay and Vince Foster had brokered a deal with Marcia Scott who owned me on paper, and who had agreed to allow me to accept a postion with Bernie Nussbaum and be assigned on paper to the counsel’s office but belong technically to Correspondence from whence I came, which allowed me to maintain the apolitical nature of my appointment and thus my viability through differing opposing administrations." In response to questions, Tripp testified at length to her observations concerning FBI files in the Counsel’s office and some of the uses to which they were put, e.g. input into a data base for joint use by the White House and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). At one point she says she notified Bruce Lindsay (who she believed at the time was not aware of the illegalities occurring). Tripp relates, "It was during that conversation that Bruce Lindsay said that that kind of talk could get me destroyed." During her tenure in the Legal Counsel’s Office, from May, 1993 through May, 1994 (when she was transferred to the Pentagon ) she had access to highly sensitive classified documents with her "top secret and higher" security clearance. In her testimony she relates one instance when Bernie Nussbaum came out of a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) and handed her a thick document with instructions to "secure" it. Tripp stated that she was the only one in the Counsel’s office with that responsibility.
At the Pentagon, she became acquainted with Monica Lewinsky and, as they say, the rest is history (although all of it is not generally known.). While at the White House, Tripp had become a witness in the Kathleen Willey affair and was being pressured by Monica Lewinsky to perjure herself if called to testify in the Paula Jones civil case. Lewinsky had, on two occasions, left a document at Tripp’s desk in the Pentagon purporting to list a large number of people who had met suspicious deaths connected to Clinton scandals. When asked if she considered these instances to be threats, Tripp replied, yes. One of the "lists" had a hand written note in the margin saying, "Linda, thought this might be of interest to you." When asked whose handwriting it was, she would only say it was not Monica’s. She was asked if she thought she knew who had sent the lists, the deposition went "off the record" and the subject was not discussed after they came back "on the record." One of the most disturbing things (to this writer) in the testimony related to Tripp’s interface with Ken Starr’s Independent Counsel Office. Tripp testified that in one of her early contacts with the office she informed them that she had information they should have on a variety of subjects including; Travelgate (she said she had advance information on the firing of the travel office staff and felt some guilt for not warning Billy Dale), illegal use of FBI files, Vince Foster’s "so-called suicide and its aftermath" (her words), the RTC (Resolution Trust Corporation) see the author’s article (Danforth’s Bookends of 9/11/99) regarding Hillary Clinton’s exposure to criminal activity re the RTC, and Waco. Of these subjects, only Waco was outside of Starr’s investigatory mandate. Tripp was told, by Starr’s staff, that they would get to those subjects later but initially they wanted to concentrate on the Willey and Lewinsky affairs. Tripp stated, "later never came." This writer believes the public is entitled to an explanation as to why Ken Starr seemed not to be interested in provable criminal conduct within the White House and opted to investigate only the sexual pecadillos of the president. Was it a diversionary tactic? It will also be interesting to see if former Senator Danforth and the various congressional committees invite Linda Tripp to share whatever knowledge she has of Waco with them, but don’t hold your breath. __________________________________________________________________________________________ The author is a free lance writer based in Romulus, Michigan. He is a former newspaper editor and investigative reporter, a retired customs administrator and accountant, and a student of history and the U.S. Constitution. Permission is granted to reproduce this article in its entirety. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om |
