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[Beckett <thomas AT tbeckett.com>]

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