Linda Tripp on Larry King last night...(part 1 of 3)
KLP NOTE: Originally, when I read this transcript, I thought I'd just post sections of it...it is long. But as I read it, I realized that it was important to have the whole thing reprinted, in a place that hopefully, will remain online, and "undoctored."
Ms. Tripp has some important things to say about WHY she came forward, and shared some of the difficulties she has endured because of that decision. I think that history will look favorably on Ms. Tripp.
In particular, she said these things and they made me wonder: Could any of us imagine just how very difficult it must have been to be in her shoes, and do the right thing?
I had been so indoctrinated that my position was apolitical, that our job was to support the institution, our loyalty was to the institution that it never occurred to me not to welcome him. (Clinton)
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I think what I'm most interested in getting across is to all those people out there who might have evidence of criminal wrongdoing, whether it's a high elected official or anyone, not to be put off by what has happened to me. I can live with myself. I have gone through financial ruin, personal vilification, the distress and dismay of my family. The pain is -- there are no words to (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
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So I would encourage them to have the courage of their convictions and to try, at least try, not to be overwhelmed. No one will ever, I don't believe, face the vilification I did, because they won't be up against the Clintons. KING: All right. You can't get that part back. But you're obviously, well, ready to go on with yourself. There is sadness in you, though, for your children, right?
Transcript: Linda Tripp on 'Larry King Live'
cnn.com
February 9, 2001
Web posted at: 10:25 PM EST (0325 GMT)
LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, she blew the lid off a presidential scandal and shattered her life. Linda Tripp, for the hour, next on LARRY KING LIVE.
Good evening. Our special guest tonight, for the full hour, is Linda Tripp, her second -- I think your second -- your second visit with us on this program. It's always great to have her with us. We are in rural Virginia. When did you move out? We're not going to say where you live, so you don't get bugged. But when did you leave the city environs?
LINDA TRIPP: Last spring.
KING: Reason to get away or just...
L. TRIPP: Oh, yeah. But the difference is like night and day. It's private.
KING: Were you hassled a lot?
L. TRIPP: Oh, yes. And it never stopped, though. You would think two years into it, it would have stopped, but it didn't.
KING: What do you make of that?
L. TRIPP: Oh, the national soap opera intrigue. People are intrigued with characters from scandal.
KING: And you were -- you rolled the dice, you're part of the game?
L. TRIPP: Yeah. It's interesting how it completely changes your life because you can never get your privacy back. Your anonymity is gone.
KING: Once you lose it -- so you have to just face it, huh? But you can, though.
L. TRIPP: Look. You can tell that I've kept such a low profile. We've accepted almost no invitations. We don't go to the galas. We don't go to the Oscars. All the invitations that have been made available to those of us who were part of this, we just don't accept. I've tried so hard to get my life back. And frankly, I don't think it is possible.
KING: Well, let's take first things first. You look fantastic. We know you had some work done. Whoever did it did a great job, because what he did was he didn't give you the perfection kind of thing. But he made you look perfectly fit to what you were.
L. TRIPP: He brought me back...
KING: Was it a he?
L. TRIPP: Yeah, it was a he. He's in Bethesda. He actually did the corrective surgery, because my first surgery was such a disaster. And that doctor went on a 15 minute of fame television talking to tour, which was horrible. So six months later, I found Dr. Richards in Bethesda, and he is just a talented, gifted, wonderful man.
KING: Were you scared?
L. TRIPP: I was terrified. It's not fun.
KING: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) should never do that.
L. TRIPP: No. It's not anything I would recommend unless your reasons are solid.
KING: And your reasons were?
L. TRIPP: I was so shattered for my children. Kids are so sensitive about their parents anyway. And my kids always thought I was pretty. And they were so completely shattered by the John Goodman and the horrible press. And I just felt so badly for them. I just wanted to fix it.
KING: Didn't feel bad for you when they made fun of you? It was more for them?
L. TRIPP: I think you steel yourself and you steel yourself to say this doesn't matter to me. I was never one to preen anyway. I was never one to really think a whole lot about that. I thought I looked fine.
But yeah, when I saw the pictures, I was dismayed as well. But remember, when the country met me, it was five years, more than five years after I had really endured Clinton hell. And I internalized in such a way that I ate my way into oblivion to sort of cope.
I always say if I had been an alcoholic, I'd be a Bowrey (ph) Street bum. Instead, I weighed 200 pounds.
KING: Were they unfair to you, Linda?
L. TRIPP: Who?
KING: The Goodmans, the "Saturday Night Lives"?
L. TRIPP: Oh, I don't know. Look, we were all targets.
KING: That's parody in America, though, right? They -- of course, they certainly were rough on Clinton too, right?
L. TRIPP: Absolutely. No, no. I don't take it personally. I just know that it's hurtful. But it was hurtful, I think, for everyone involved.
KING: Well, we're going to cover a lot of that. How does it feel, though, to have a kind of a different look? Forget that what -- to just feel -- does it make -- does it make your personality different?
L. TRIPP: No, I don't think so. I think you can't look for it to do that for you. What it did for me was make me recapture the old Linda, the pre-scandal Linda, because I had gained so much weight during the Clinton years, just obsessing on these horrible things I was witnessing and didn't know what to do. And I'd just keep running for donuts. It was kind of my way to cope.
If you look at pictures prior to the Clintons, I kind of, now look...
KING: Like that.
L. TRIPP: ... like that, less the cheeks, of course.
KING: And you also had some dental work. Let's discuss that. By the way, you look fine, by the way. I know you're worried about your -- did you have a root canal?
L. TRIPP: I have chipmunk cheeks today.
KING: Root canal.
L. TRIPP: I had three. Yeah.
KING: The world's worst nightmare.
L. TRIPP: Yeah. It was horrible, and my face is swollen on both sides. So I thought...
KING: But you didn't cancel, Linda.
L. TRIPP: Well, no. I just figured, look, I'm not photogenic anyway, so this'll just be a little worse.
KING: By the way, you look fine.
L. TRIPP: Thanks.
KING: I'm not saying anything to butter up. You look terrific.
L. TRIPP: Thank you. Thank you. That's sweet.
KING: When last you were on, the first question I asked you was -- this was February 15th, 1999, almost two years. Are you still gainfully employed? I guess your -- I guess your answer was yes. Now the answer is no. What happened?
L. TRIPP: Well, first of all, I got -- I wasn't even gainfully employed at that time.
KING: You were paid, though.
L. TRIPP: I was paid. What happened? I was on official orders, actually, Department of Defense orders, to interview for a senior level government position in Garmage (ph), Germany, for the Department of the Army. And this had been in the works since October. And I was...
KING: After all the scandal?
L. TRIPP: Yeah. This past October. And I was rated one of the top three candidates for this deputy director position. I was so excited. They were treating me like a normal person, I thought, in Germany, because I visited my grandmother in the last couple of years. I'm treated very much like a normal person in Germany. They don't look at me as notorious, or famous in any way.
So I thought, oh, this is great. It was a great job. And when I arrived for the interview, they handed me the -- I'm going to show you this because this is unprecedented. And what this is, "Linda Tripp up for a Job at Marshall Center." Above the fold headline, unprecedented in the history...
KING: Controversial figure one of or...
L. TRIPP: And there was even a typo in the headline.
KING: Yes. "One or Four Candidates," interviewing...
L. TRIPP: They were in such a rush to get it in.
KING: Do you think this cooked your goose?
L. TRIPP: Oh, sure. Sure. There is no way. This is a sensitive think tank. It's a terrific bilateral German-American endeavor to teach former communist countries how to deal with democracy and...
KING: So did you know you were cooked as soon as you saw that?
L. TRIPP: Yes. It's more than cooked. I -- this was my last, best chance to resume my government career, and it was over. I now know it's over.
KING: We'll find out how they let you go and why they let you go. Our guest is Linda Tripp. This is LARRY KING LIVE. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We're in rural Virginia with Linda Tripp. How were you terminated?
L. TRIPP: Well, actually, when I appeared for the interview, they handed me "The Stars and Stripes," asked me to autograph it...
(LAUGHTER)
... and told me that I had been fired. Showed me copies of "The Drudge Report" and actually a CNN report with the breaking news that I had been fired. I didn't know. I...
KING: Who fired you?
L. TRIPP: Well...
KING: Who fires someone in a government job?
L. TRIPP: The Clinton White House. It -- because it was a political...
KING: Not the Department of Defense? L. TRIPP: No, no. It's -- well, it's channeled through your particular Cabinet agency.
KING: So Secretary Cohen fired you?
L. TRIPP: Yes. But the interesting thing is that you have to define political appointee, which I was at this point. I had a 20- year, stellar government career. And I -- even when I worked at the White House for President Bush and Clinton -- I worked directly for both -- I was an apolitical civil servant, not a political. After I spoke freely to the independent counsel about Vince Foster, I was asked to leave the White House, and they offered me a political appointment, which...
KING: The Pentagon?
L. TRIPP: Yes. Which essentially ensured that in order to maintain my livelihood, I would belong to them. And it worked. It worked for quite some time.
KING: What was your reason for dismissal?
L. TRIPP: Well, they purport that it was a change in administration. My position is that I'm not a political appointee. You can't make someone a political appointee just to silence them.
I mean, I was a career government servant. I didn't go through the plum (ph) book and say, I did a good deed for Clinton, therefore, I'll get one of these thousands of jobs. I did the complete opposite. I was a 20-year veteran of the government, and they made me take a political...
KING: And they can get away -- are you filing any -- is there -- do you have a route to go?
L. TRIPP: We do. We're -- we have had for some time. We have now two lawsuits against the Department of Defense and the White House.
KING: Asking for job back or remuneration?
L. TRIPP: Well, I don't -- you'd have to ask the lawyers all the intricacies. I just know that what happened in the Clinton White House should never have happened to anyone. You -- you know, they illegally gained access to top-secret information about a -- a staffer and then, disseminated it to the media a week before I was scheduled to testify before the grand jury.
It instantly decimated my credibility. It did everything it was supposed to do. That's -- that's not legal. And the fellow who did it, who owes his very career to the Clinton White House, is now the boss of the -- I think it's called "Armed Forces Information Service," which owns "The Stars and Stripes."
KING: Is that a government job?
L. TRIPP: Well, yes. It's huge.
KING: And he's not a political job?
L. TRIPP: No. He started out as a Clinton -- he was a lieutenant colonel that never got promoted. And when the Clintons came in, he became a Clinton appointee and orchestrated it so he became career. So he's completely protected. He didn't even get slapped on the wrist for what the...
KING: Who was he? L. TRIPP: Clifford Burnatt (ph), who didn't -- the Department of Defense inspector general ruled and sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department that he had violated the Privacy Act, intentionally. He didn't even get slapped on the wrist. Justice -- Reno's Justice Department held it for a year and then said, we decline to do anything.
KING: Your lawyers called your firing "vindictive, mean-spirited and wrong." Do you agree with all those adjectives?
L. TRIPP: And completely expectable.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Do you get -- do you get a pension?
L. TRIPP: No. I've lost my benefits. I've lost my health benefits. I've lost everything.
KING: You have no income?
L. TRIPP: I think I'll be filing for bankruptcy. Look, I've never, ever been without a job. I've never not worked for the government.
KING: Therefore, having to do it all over again, would you have done nothing?
L. TRIPP: Oh, no, Larry.
KING: You still would have done the same thing?
L. TRIPP: I had no choice. I keep telling you, it was about the president of the United States trying to fix a court case.
Look, in the years that I worked for President Bush, who was a true statesman, I had become accustomed to White House procedure. It had exceeded my expectations. When the Clintons came in, it was from the get-go unscrupulous. And the things that happened -- I mean, this gift story now is old news.
KING: I want to ask you about that. Why didn't you quit?
L. TRIPP: Why didn't I quit?
KING: When you didn't like -- you didn't like Clinton. You didn't like...
L. TRIPP: I was a civil servant. I support the institution of the presidency, not the incumbent.
KING: Did you ask for a transfer out of the White House?
L. TRIPP: No. I didn't want to leave the White House.
KING: So even though you didn't like the guy running the White House...
L. TRIPP: I wouldn't -- I wouldn't have chosen him as the president after what I had seen.
KING: But you weren't like anti-him going in?
L. TRIPP: Oh, no. No.
KING: You weren't like crazed with...
L. TRIPP: I was excited. I mean, I was so sad to see my friends in the Bush administration leave, but it had been -- I had been so indoctrinated that my position was apolitical, that our job was to support the institution, our loyalty was to the institution that it never occurred to me not to welcome him.
KING: You mentioned gifts, which is, of course, now the buzz word in all the news.
L. TRIPP: Right.
KING: Are you saying this goes back to when you were there? You know about -- you know things about gifts?
L. TRIPP: The first week after the first inauguration, January of '93, I was asked to go to work directly for President Clinton in the Oval Office, primarily because I had worked for President Bush's chief of staff. I was not political, and I knew how the Oval Office ran.
Gifts were coming in from everywhere. You can just imagine a new head of state and gifts are coming. And because I was brought in, because of my institutional memory and my knowledge of procedure, I'm filling out the gift unit form. I mean, I know exactly what the procedure is. And they didn't want any part of that.
KING: What do you mean? They didn't want the forms filled out?
L. TRIPP: No.
KING: They told you, don't fill out the forms?
L. TRIPP: Take off your Bush hat. This is the Clinton White House.
KING: And you said...
L. TRIPP: I said this is the law. It doesn't matter whose White House it is, and this is directly to Bruce Lindsey.
KING: And he said?
L. TRIPP: The forms, at that time, didn't go.
KING: We'll be right back with Linda Tripp. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We're back with Linda Tripp.
All right, all these gifts -- every new president -- I would imagine President Bush has gotten a lot of gifts. When a gift come in, if it's -- what? -- if it's over a certain amount of money...
L. TRIPP: Let me -- it's been so many years...
KING: What's the procedure?
L. TRIPP: ... since I handled this, so I can only tell you what happened in the two administrations and you can draw your own conclusions. In the Bush White House, I remember gifts coming from heads of state. For instance, one was a -- just to give you an idea of the opulence -- from some sheik was a crystal globe, a Baccarat (ph) crystal globe this big. And the countries are all depicted by precious gems, not semi-precious, but precious gems on a 24-carat gold pedestal. It had a value of some exorbitant amount. Probably...
KING: Did you figure out the value, or did someone else figure it out?
L. TRIPP: No. It's done. I mean, it's all done very professionally.
In any event, you know, there's, obviously, the requisite "thank yous" and the gift goes to the gift unit. It's a present to the country, not to the incumbent.
We used to take little tours of the gift unit just because it was fascinating to see the gifts. I mean, there were everything from someone would knit golf covers to these opulent countries...
KING: And they can be loaned to presidential libraries, right?
L. TRIPP: I don't know. I've seen that recently.
KING: I think I've seen some at libraries, where they appear on loan from the White House.
L. TRIPP: And that may well be. I don't remember. I just know...
KING: OK, you fill out the form with the estimated worth.
L. TRIPP: It goes to the -- it goes to the gift unit...
KING: That was always the case in the Bush administration.
L. TRIPP: Oh, absolutely.
KING: Not Clinton.
L. TRIPP: It was floor to ceiling stacked with gifts that had come that were routinely sent to the gift unit. In the Clinton White House -- and again, I have to caveat that by saying I can only tell you what I witnessed in my year and a half with the Clintons. Most of it didn't make it to the gift unit. Now...
KING: You think it went to them.
L. TRIPP: I know on many occasions it went to them.
KING: Some of those opulent gifts?
L. TRIPP: Yes.
KING: Well, would you tell your friends? Would you be -- what did you say? You know, this has got to be listed?
L. TRIPP: Well, yes. I mean, look, you can only do your job, and my job was to ensure that they were aware of what the law was. After that, they're the boss. I -- you know, I was a worker.
KING: So I...
L. TRIPP: But that was one of so many different things that -- it's extraordinary to me that the media now, eight years later, after they're out of office, seem to -- and this pack mentality they seem to have say, whoa, this isn't right.
KING: But how would they have known that? That it...
L. TRIPP: Well, they should have listened to all of us who came forward, Larry.
KING: But you said you weren't coming forward about the gifts.
L. TRIPP: But I did finally. When I was -- when I was to the point where I knew he was trying to fix a court case, and now I was being asked to do the same.
KING: So you told about the gifts then?
L. TRIPP: No, no. No. That -- I only...
KING: That's new.
L. TRIPP: There were things that we discussed at the OIC. Yeah, the gifts are new. But there's so many new things...
KING: Are you -- therefore you're not shocked at any of the stories as they left, the tables, they're returning the rental office, the...
L. TRIPP: Frankly, I'm shocked that it's being reported at all, and I'm more than shocked that there seems to be, finally, a sense of outrage and accountability.
KING: Well, it deals all -- it broke around Marc Rich, don't you think?
L. TRIPP: But that again is so predictable. So predictable.
KING: Well, you must feel a little weird. Here's this guy on the flee and charged with all these crimes, and you are out of work. And you, as you see it, were trying to do what you were trying to do. So...
L. TRIPP: Oh, well, you know, it's interesting...
KING: How's it make you feel?
L. TRIPP: I don't know a whole lot of -- when this all -- all these stories broke, I was in Europe and not paying attention until I saw "The Stars and Stripes." But I did read that he was a fugitive and that pardons are generally for those who have been...
KING: Served their time.
L. TRIPP: Yes. And so I -- but knowing them, everything has, at its core, money -- everything.
KING: But he's never been known as a...
L. TRIPP: No, she is.
KING: So what do you think it is with him? If it's not -- if he doesn't know his net worth -- and they say he probably doesn't -- and money doesn't -- I mean, he's a fund-raiser. But personal wealth is not...
L. TRIPP: Right. No, I don't think money was really his motivator.
KING: What do you think was?
L. TRIPP: Again, I can only say what I saw, and it appeared to me that Mrs. Clinton had always two -- a focus on two levels. One was power, and one was money. And I think that this gentleman was a lucrative asset to them. And remember, they can do things...
KING: So follow the money ...
L. TRIPP: Follow the money, because what happens is they have traditionally been able to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) their excuses. Do it, and then say, hey, that's old news, we're moving on. We're moving on, we're doing the business of the country. She is doing the exact same thing now that he did, which is I'm here to work for the constituents of New York.
So she doesn't really address it. She just keeps moving on. And it works.
KING: And then someone in your spot -- does that drive you nuts? Nuts that it works.
L. TRIPP: I am mesmerized, mesmerized beyond belief at their ability to fool all of the people all of the time. KING: We'll be right back with more of Linda Tripp. We'll try to draw her out in the next portion. It's very difficult; she's so inward. Don't go away. |
