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  • From: Beckett <thomas AT tbeckett.com>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] Civil rights victory - was Linda Tripp gets paid
  • Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 15:20:51 -0500

Shea Tisdale wrote:
$600,000 seems a bit excessive, but I hope that I get that much if they
release secret information about my involvement in running the
world...oops...ignore that!

What ever did happen to her? I think one of the strange legal
requirements on that charge for her was that she had to be aware that it
was illegal or something...only time I've ever heard that, but that's
what my brain is remembering.

Wait, there's more!

"When her name surfaced in the news in connection with the Lewinsky affair, reporter Jane Mayer was assigned a profile of her by the New Yorker. I interviewed Mayer about her reporting and learned that during the course of her investigation, she tracked down numerous friends and family members of Tripp, without any help, she assures me, from the White House or anyone else in the government.

"Mayer found Tripp s step-mother, who blurted out that Tripp had such a foul disposition, she’d even gotten into a brawl and been arrested. The step-mother, who has confirmed that she was the source of this information, and gave Mayer sufficient detail to allow her to file an FOIA request, and to track down Tripp’s arrest record from the local police station where she was busted.

"Armed with a facsimile of her arrest, Mayer then called the Pentagon, to see whether the Defense Department had any record of her arrest, and to see whether she had properly disclosed it, as is required under the law. The press office at the Pentagon checked her record, and reported back to me that Tripp had no arrest record, as far as they knew.

"This was the ostensible infringement of Tripp’s privacy. The government did not disclose her arrest record. The government attempted to suggest she had no arrest record. It was her step-mother who blew the whistle on her, not the government. And it was old-fashioned, factual reporting that disclosed that Tripp lied to get a top security clearance.

"But with the help of a huge network of right-wing lawyers and press outlets, Tripp turned her potentially felonious lie, and her felony arrest history into a cause celebre, shifting all blame for her own miserable conduct onto the Pentagon, and claiming falsely yet again, that somehow the government had released her arrest record and tarred her name. She tarred her own name. The government (incorrectly) denied she had an arrest record. Mayer wrote the story, straight.

"The CNN story in question makes a zillion mistakes, every one of them in Tripp’s favor. It says she was a minor, when arrested. She was an adult. It says the government leaked information about her arrest. It did not. It says the case involved drinking — it was a grand larceny charge, which as George W. Bush, could tell you, is much more serious. They say she was never charged. She was charged in an open court with Grand Larceny, and then, in a plea agreement, she pled guilty to a reduced charge of loitering. The case was adjudicated, not dropped.

"And no one until this day has ever prosecuted her or disciplined her for lying and covering up her arrest, in order to get an undeserved top security clearance. Instead, the government is paying her $600,000 despite the fact that she clearly lied about her status.

"The media has done a completely miserable job at holding its own against her spin-meisters. The press seems to have been incapable of getting the facts of her case right — over and over she’s portrayed herself as a juvenile, and claimed she was never charged, when all you have to do is go to look here to see her arrest record, and her mug shot. And another Tripp link is here at The Smoking Gun."

http://www.msnbc.com/news/752664.asp?cp1=1#031104
----

The article links to the Drudge Report but the promised mug shot is not there. The Smoking Gun has this arrest report:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/tripp1.html

TaB







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