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Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cody andre who wrote (15277)	5/21/1998 7:46:00 PM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20981

Just the latest in the never-ending saga of Democrat/Clinton lawlessness and corruption: Pentagon official says he leaked Tripp file By Bill Sammon THE WASHINGTON TIMES The Pentagon's chief spokesman has acknowledged under oath that he leaked Linda R. Tripp's personnel file to a reporter even though he knew he might be breaking the law. Mrs. Tripp is a central figure in the Monica Lewinsky sex-and-lies scandal now embroiling the White House. Assistant Defense Secretary Kenneth H. Bacon, a Clinton appointee, said Friday in a deposition to Judicial Watch, a conservative legal foundation, that he orchestrated the release of information on whether Mrs. Tripp had ever been arrested. Such a disclosure is a clear violation of the Privacy Act, according to lawyers familiar with the law. Violating the act is a misdemeanor that rarely nets the offender prison time but often leads to substantial civil fines and severe administrative penalties, such as firing. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen has already ordered the Pentagon inspector general to investigate the leak of the Tripp information to Jane Mayer, a reporter for the New Yorker magazine who once worked with Mr. Bacon at the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Cohen's office had no comment yesterday when asked about Mr. Bacon's sworn statement. Previously, Mr. Cohen said Mrs. Tripp's file "was supposed to be protected by the privacy rules" and called its release "certainly inappropriate, if not illegal." Mr. Bacon refused comment yesterday. He remains chief spokesman for the Pentagon -- a fact that rankles some who remember President-elect Clinton's accusation in 1992 that Bush administration officials had rifled through his passport file. At the time, Mr. Clinton promised if there were similar activities in his administration, "you will not have an inquiry or rigmarole or anything else. If I catch anyone using the State Department like that when I'm president, I'll fire them the next day." Mr. Bacon received the request from Mrs. Mayer on March 12. "She called me and said that she had information that Linda Tripp had been arrested," Mr. Bacon said. "She said, 'Is there any way of finding out how she answered a specific question on her security clearance form?'" Mrs. Mayer explained that Mrs. Tripp had been detained by police as a teen-ager in 1969. She wanted to know whether Mrs. Tripp had answered "no" to the question of whether she had ever been arrested on the clearance form. "I told her that I would check, but I didn't know whether we would be able to locate the information and, if we could find it, whether we would be able to make it public," Mr. Bacon said. "And I cited the Privacy Act." Mr. Bacon said he repeated his concerns about privacy when he called David O. Cooke, the Pentagon's director of administration and management, to relay Mrs. Mayer's request. He said he mentioned privacy a third time when he handed off the matter to his principal deputy, Clifford H. Bernath. On the morning of March 13, Mr. Bernath called Mrs. Mayer to assure her that he was working on the request. He told her, "Ken has made clear it's a priority," according to his notes, which were subpoenaed by Judicial Watch. But getting the information was not easy. Mr. Cooke referred Mr. Bernath to Steve O'Toole, director of personnel security. Mr. O'Toole, in turn, referred him to Les Blake, chief of the office on Privacy and the Freedom of Information Act. "I called Mr. Bernath and informed him I had the information he was looking for and ask[ed] him if he was requesting this information in an official capacity," Mr. Blake wrote in a "Memorandum for the Record." "Mr. Bernath assured me that this was an official request." Mr. Blake then gave Mr. Bernath the security form, which Mrs. Tripp had filled out in 1987. On it, she answered "no" to the question: "Have you ever been arrested, charged, cited or held by law enforcement authorities?" Mr. Bernath passed this on to Mrs. Mayer, even though no one at the Pentagon had obtained Mrs. Tripp's permission to disclose the information. "I was certainly aware that he was doing it and did nothing to stop it," Mr. Bacon said. "Cliff and I had discussed this, and this was something we had done together." Mrs. Mayer used the information to question Mrs. Tripp's credibility in an article that was completed and faxed to Mr. Bacon on Friday night. Mr. Bacon mentioned the article to Mr. Cohen as he prepared for an appearance on a Sunday morning TV talk show. "I said that the New Yorker magazine was preparing to report that Linda Tripp had lied on a security form and that he could get asked about this on Sunday," Mr. Bacon said. However, Mr. Bacon said he did not tell Mr. Cohen that the contents of Mrs. Tripp's Pentagon file had been leaked to the reporter. That omission proved troublesome on March 17, when Mr. Cohen was blindsided by a question about the leak during an appearance at the National Press Club. By this time, it was clear that Mrs. Tripp had been arrested in a teen-age prank gone awry. Attention shifted away from the substance of her personnel file to the decision to disclose it in the first place. Mr. Bacon acknowledged in his deposition that his boss was made to look foolish at the Press Club. On March 18, he heard from Mr. Cohen's chief of staff, Robert S. Tyrer. "He called me and said that he was upset by the fact that information had been released and that Defense Department officials were apparently responsible for it," Mr. Bacon said. "He did not blame me." Later that day, Mr. Bernath told Mr. Bacon he was calling for a legal review of the disclosure. He has said he was following Mr. Bacon's orders in leaking the Tripp information. He has since been transferred to another Pentagon job. washtimes.com