Linda Tripp Indicted On Wiretap Charges

Linda Tripp's secret recordings of phone conversations with Monica Lewinsky were meant to bring presidential misconduct to light, and she should be praised, not prosecuted, her lawyers say. A Maryland grand jury thought otherwise, indicting Mrs. Tripp on state wiretapping charges. The indictment, which followed a yearlong investigation, makes Mrs. Tripp the only major figure in the sex scandal to face a criminal charge. Each offense carries up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Tripp spokesman Philip Coughter called the investigation ``the most disgraceful, transparent campaign of politically motivated vengeance in recent American history.''

Mrs. Tripp's new attorney Stephen Kohn, who has handled numerous government whistle-blower cases, compared her to civil rights heroes who broke minor state laws to battle injustice. He said federal law protects Mrs. Tripp as a government witness in a corruption case. Kohn said he will challenge the state's authority to bring charges because she was given immunity by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr when she turned over the tapes. Kohn likened the Maryland investigation to the McCarthy-era communist witch hunts and said Friday's indictment ``will have a chilling effect on witnesses who have the courage to document and report official misconduct.'' State Prosecutor Stephen Montanarelli, who led the grand jury investigation, said simply, ``I think she broke the law.'' He waved off suggestions that the case would be viewed as politically motivated. ``I can't help how it will be seen. ... I think we've done our duty,'' he said. Montanarelli, a Democrat appointed to his post in 1984, said he would handle the case himself.

The grand jury indicted Mrs. Tripp on one count of illegal interception, for taping a phone conversation on Dec. 22, 1997, after she was told by her lawyer that secret taping was illegal. In conversations taped that day, the two women discussed what they should say about Ms. Lewinsky's sexual relationship with President Clinton in testimony they expected to have to give for Paula Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit against the president. Mrs. Tripp also was charged with disclosing the contents of that conversation to Newsweek magazine, which published a partial transcript of a Tripp-Lewinsky phone call on Feb. 2, 1998. A spokeswoman for Newsweek, Jan Angilella, said magazine officials would not comment on the proceeding. The White House and representatives of Ms. Lewinsky also declined to comment.

It was Mrs. Tripp's more than 20 hours of recordings that launched the independent counsel's investigation of Clinton's relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, a former White House intern. The recordings of the two women's rambling and sometimes ribald conversations were released publicly by the House Judiciary Committee before the House voted to impeach Clinton for perjury and obstruction. He was acquitted on Feb. 12, 1999 after a Senate trial.

Maryland's wiretap law, which is infrequently prosecuted, forbids taping phone conversations without the other party's consent. Ignorance of the law is a valid defense. But Mrs. Tripp, who recorded the calls in her Columbia, Md., living room, testified for Starr's grand jury that she taped several conversations in late 1997 even after an attorney told her it was illegal. Mrs. Tripp, 49, has said she began taping her friend's phone calls to protect herself because she was being pressured by Ms. Lewinsky to lie in Mrs. Jones' lawsuit against the president. Ms. Lewinsky confided her sexual encounters with the president to Mrs. Tripp after the pair became friends while working together at the Pentagon. Ms. Lewinsky wanted Mrs. Tripp to deny knowledge of the relationship in an affidavit for Mrs. Jones' sexual harassment case. Starr gave Ms. Lewinsky immunity from prosecution in return for her testimony against Clinton.

New York book agent Lucianne Goldberg, who testified in Starr's investigation last November, said she had urged Mrs. Tripp to start taping. Mrs. Tripp also talked with her about writing a tell-all book about her years at the White House. Reached by phone in New York, Ms. Goldberg said, ``Now she will be able to have her day in court and tell her side of the story.''

See some photos of Bill and Monica together