CLINTON ACCUSED
Excerpts: After Subpoenas, Tripp and
Lewinsky Discuss Options
Sunday, Jan. 25, 1998; Page A19
The week before Christmas, Monica Lewinsky
and Linda Tripp had been subpoenaed to be
deposed in the Paula Jones sexual harassment
lawsuit against President Clinton. They
suspected they would be asked whether
Lewinsky had a sexual relationship with the
president. Lewinsky called Tripp late one
evening and again the next morning. Tripp
taped the conversations. Excerpts of those
recordings, as heard by Newsweek, follow:
Tripp asks Lewinsky for permission to tell her lawyer about the
dilemma.
LEWINSKY: Don't you think he's going to say, "Linda, I can't let you
lie?"
TRIPP: He may, but it's not going to hurt us more than we already are
hurt.
LEWINSKY: But it's one more person who will know. . . .
LEWINSKY: Look, maybe we should just tell the creep. Maybe we
should just say, "Don't ever talk to me again, I [expletive] you over [by
telling others about the relationship]. Now you have this information, do
whatever you want with it.
TRIPP: Well, if you want to do that, that's what I would do. But I don't
know that you're comfortable with that. I think he should know.
LEWINSKY: He won't settle [the Jones case]. He's in denial.
TRIPP: I think if he [expletive] knew, he would settle.
LEWINSKY: I don't think so because he knows what it will end up just
being is me against you. I don't want to paint you as a bad person.
TRIPP: Look, Monica, we already know you're going to lie under oath.
We also know that I want out of this big time. . . . If I have to testify, it's
going to be the opposite of what you say. . . .
LEWINSKY: Well, it doesn't have to be a conflict.
TRIPP: What do you mean? How? Tell me how? [What am I] supposed
to say if they say, "Has Monica Lewinsky ever said to you that she is in
love with the president or is having a physical relationship with the
president?" If I say no, that is [expletive] perjury. That's the bottom line. I
will do everything I can not to be in that position. That's what I'm trying to
do. . . . I think you really believe that this is very easy, and I should just
say [expletive] it. They can't prove it.
LEWINSKY: I believe you, but obviously I don't have the same feelings
about the situation. . . .
TRIPP: What do you mean?
LEWINSKY: Because if I had the same feelings that it was so wrong to
deny something then I would not be doing it. You see what I mean?
TRIPP: I think down deep you don't like having to lie.
LEWINSKY: . . . I don't think anybody likes to. . . . I would lie on the
stand for my family. That is how I was raised.
TRIPP: You're going to die here. I would do almost anything for my kids,
but I don't think I would lie on the stand for them. . . .
LEWINSKY: I was brought up with lies all the time . . . that's how you
got along. . . . I have lied my entire life. . . .
TRIPP: This is so amazingly huge to me. . . .
LEWINSKY: Look, I will deny it so he will not get screwed in the case,
but I'm going to get screwed personally.
TRIPP: . . . This is sick, this is sick. . . .
The women discuss a plan for Tripp to have a "foot accident" and
end up in the hospital when she is to be deposed.
TRIPP: Look. I can't lie under oath, so I have to think of a way that I
don't have to. . . . I only wish you'd tell the big one [that I know]. Then I'd
know he knew. . . .
LEWINSKY: I can't. If I do that, I'm just going to [expletive] kill myself. .
. .
TRIPP: He hasn't asked you if you told anyone?
LEWINSKY: . . . He asked me something, and I said no. . . . The other
one, the one I saw today [apparently Vernon E. Jordan Jr., the president's
confidant], asked me, . . . "You didn't tell anybody, did you?"
TRIPP: And what did you say?
LEWINSKY: No.
TRIPP: Oh, Jesus Christ. And you think anything you tell him would
definitely get back to the other one?
LEWINSKY: Of course it would.
The women return to a discussion of whether there is any hard evidence
that could hurt them.
LEWINSKY: Whatever they have, if they have anything, has to be
inadmissible. Nobody saw him give me any of those things and nobody
saw anything happen between us.
TRIPP: Are you positive that nobody saw you in the study?
LEWINSKY: I'm absolutely positive.
TRIPP: How about Betty [Currie]? . . .
TRIPP: What if they are able to subpoena records?
LEWINSKY: What records?
TRIPP: Phone records.
LEWINSKY: Phone calls to me? Honestly. . . . I'd say I was afraid to say
he [called me] because we're friends, and I know what this case is about.
. . . I'm sure he calls on some sort of special phone. . . . You know he got
caught once [by using a regular phone] so . . .
Lewinsky sighs and again expresses her wish that Clinton would
settle the Jones case. She concludes it will never happen.
TRIPP: You don't know that yet.
LEWINSKY: Yeah, I do, from the way -- what Vernon said.
TRIPP: Was he definite?
LEWINSKY: Oh, you could hear it in his voice. It's like done. . . .
TRIPP: I can't be involved in this. I can't be a party to all this ugliness that
will do nothing except destroy people. . . .
LEWINSKY: I will have lost the two closest people to me. . . .
TRIPP: Maybe Vernon's right and it's a huge fishing net because of the
rumor [that Lewinsky was having sex with Clinton]. . . . Maybe it's just us
flipping out.
The women discuss letters, photos and gifts that Lewinsky says
she gave to and got from Clinton, and they debate how to respond
to the portion of Lewinsky's subpoena that asks for all such
evidence. Lewinsky worries that the inscription on an official White
House photograph is so personal that lawyers will use it against
her. She says she tried to call Currie to ask for a clean copy of the
picture so that she might give that one to the lawyers. But she says
Currie is unavailable.
TRIPP: My fear is that they have information that we don't know that they
have . . . and they can nail us. . . .
LEWINSKY: If I need to, I would say . . . this did not happen [the sexual
relationship]. . . . God forbid . . . somebody had a video camera of him
and me. I would still say I never told you anything. . . . First of all, for your
sake, but also for my own sake. |
