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Tripp's Wiretapping Case Dropped

May 25, 2000

Maryland prosecutors on May 24 dropped their wiretapping case against Linda R. Tripp, the only major figure to face criminal charges in the White House scandal spawned by President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. The prosecutors said a ruling by a Howard County judge, who ordered nearly all of Lewinsky's testimony suppressed because it was tainted and not credible, left them with no case.

State Prosecutor Stephen Montanarelli said the judge's ruling left him unable to prove that Tripp recorded a telephone conversation with Lewinsky without her consent in December 1997. "There are no other witnesses to the conversation whom the state can call to testify, and Tripp cannot be compelled to testify," Montanarelli said.

Prosecutors had to build a case against Tripp that did not rely on evidence she gave to independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr's office while she was under a federal grant of immunity from prosecution. Tripp was granted immunity after she gave Starr tapes that showed Lewinsky planned to lie about her sexual relationship with Clinton when questioned under oath. Lewinsky, a former White House intern, also pressured Tripp to lie.

"I was given federal immunity when I brought forward evidence that proved the president of the United States actively tried to fix a federal civil rights case and that I was pressured to do the same," Tripp said in a statement. "Despite the federal grant of immunity, the state of Maryland pursued its selective prosecution of me for more than two years. My family and I are enormously gratified that the federal immunity I was given has finally provided the protection it promised."

Tripp, who has a pending lawsuit accusing the White House and the Defense Department of using confidential Pentagon records to smear her reputation, said the saga is not yet over. "The full story has not been told, but I continue to believe I did the right thing given the extraordinary circumstances in which I found myself--I will continue to fight the shameful smear tactics of this corrupt administration in civil court."

Howard County Judge Diane O. Leasure on May 5 ordered most of Lewinsky's testimony suppressed, saying Lewinsky was "bathed in impermissible taint" because of her access to immunized testimony and her reliance on that information in her own testimony. She also noted that Lewinsky had lied before under oath, which damaged the credibility of her state testimony.

Tripp had faced charges that she recorded a telephone conversation with Lewinsky on Dec. 22, 1997, about the intern's affair with Clinton from her home in Columbia, Md. She was indicted in July by a Maryland grand jury on two counts of violating the state's wiretap law, which is infrequently prosecuted. Recording a conversation without the consent of the other party is a crime in Maryland.

Disclosure of the tape and others Tripp secretly recorded gave Starr evidence of a sexual relationship between Lewinsky and Clinton. That evidence was used as a base for the trial that led to Clinton's impeachment by the House and acquittal after a trial in the Senate.

Tripp and Lewinsky became friends while working together at the Pentagon, and Lewinsky later told Tripp about her sexual encounters with the president. Tripp said she began taping her friend's phone calls to protect herself, because Lewinsky was pressuring her to deny knowledge of the relationship in an affidavit for Paula Jones' sexual harassment case against Clinton.

Tripp's attorneys had maintained that the grant of federal immunity given to Lewinsky before the impeachment of Clinton protected her from state prosecution. They also charged that Lewinsky was out for revenge and that the Maryland grand jury that indicted Tripp had been given tainted evidence.

In New York, book agent Lucianne Goldberg has said she urged Tripp to start taping her calls with Lewinsky after doubts were cast about the credibility of Tripp's statements regarding another woman linked to Clinton, former White House volunteer Kathleen Willey. Ms. Goldberg said she was "just thrilled for Linda," adding that her friend had "been through such an extraordinary and unfair ordeal. This has eaten up two years of her life, and her biggest crime was telling the truth."

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