Linda Tripp's Pentagon Papers
Carlson, Tucker
Linda Tripp's Pentagon Papers By Tucker Carlson Last week, the New Yorker informed its readers of at least two previously undisclosed facts about Linda Tripp. First, in the spring of 1969, Tripp,...
...Assuming that it had not been publicly disclosed before, I don't understand how that information could be properly disclosed," he says...
...How about Secretary of Defense Cohen...
...It is still not clear, however, where Cliff Bernath found Linda Tripp's security-clearance form, which apparently was not stored at the Pentagon...
...But under those rules, is there a difference between releasing or refusing to release a potentially damaging fact...
...Tripp had not been aware that her 29-year-old arrest even counted as an arrest, her lawyer explained, so she did not acknowledge it when asked...
...On what grounds did Bernath give such information to the New Yorker...
...In a letter to Bill Cohen, Solomon asked the defense secretary to "advise whether a criminal investigation has been initiated into the unauthorized disclosure of Ms...
...T]his crew isn't made up of angels," the paper said, referring to the various women in the Lewinsky saga...
...They will deal with it in their channels...
...It would be a violation of the Privacy Act...
...It would have been releasable under the Freedom of Information Act," Bernath says...
...It's totally inappropriate to release that kind of information, and everyone who works with that kind of information in government knows it," says a former high-level employee at the Defense Department's general counsel's office...
...Tripp's explanation is one that those who handle security clearances have heard many times before...
...We try to be forward-leaning...
...So why did Bernath cooperate with Jane Mayer...
...Ken Bacon said he didn't mind...
...Fair enough...
...Cliff Bernath, who has worked in public affairs at the Defense Department since before the passport affair, certainly should have known how inappropriate it was to give such information to the New Yorker...
...The federal government is famously reluctant to give reporters confidential information about its employees...
...According to those familiar with the Privacy Act of 1974, Bernath's silence is understandable...
...Had Tripp indicated on her security-clearance form that she had been arrested, Bernath says, "then we definitely wouldn't have released that...
...Bernath, who happens to be one of Tripp's supervisors, doesn't sound embarrassed as he explains how he turned over private information about his employee...
...Until late 1995, he was the independent counsel appointed to prosecute violators of the Privacy Act in the Bush administration passport investigation...
...And it's even odder considering that the document that contained Tripp's arrest declaration—Form 398, a "personal history" statement used to conduct security clearances—is not "releasable...
...It happens all the time," says the recently retired head of security for a large federal agency...
...She called in Thursday, and we responded Friday afternoon," explains Bernath, who gave Mayer the information over the phone...
...Bernath sounds frustrated...
...Believe me, it's very odd...
...White House officials have denied any involvement in the Tripp story...
...The New Yorker story appeared just as Kathleen Willey was making headlines, and immediately was held up by Clinton defenders as more evidence that the president's accusers have credibility problems...
...DiGenova should know...
...The records are supposed to be protected by the privacy rules," he now says...
...Simple, says Pentagon spokesman Cliff Bernath: She asked for it...
...It's very, very odd that they were willing to provide that information on someone who works at the Pentagon, and that they provided it so quickly," says Greg Caires, a reporter who covers the military for Defense Daily...
...Then, within a day, an explanation emerged...
...When an employee is found to have lied about a minor scrape with the law that took place before entering government service, he says, "nobody does anything about it except make a note and put it in the employee's file...
...There is silence on the phone...
...We felt very strongly that when information is releasable we shouldn't jerk around reporters or anybody else...
...I'm sure it will be looked into...
...And the secretary...
...Either way, Tripp probably has grounds for a successful civil suit against the Pentagon...
...Here's a person who hasn't done anything.' It seemed like good news...
...DiGenova ultimately concluded that no crimes had been committed...
...John Mica and Jerry Solomon were preparing to send letters of inquiry to Cohen and Clinton...
...We try to be responsive to media," he says...
...He said the answer's no...
...Has he ever admitted being arrested...
...We are concerned, obviously, that the White House had a hand in this, much like the FBI files," says Jeff Shea, an investigator for the Civil Service Subcommittee, which Mica chairs...
...It is rare, in Tucker Carlson is a staff writer for The Weekly Standard...
...What happened to Linda Tripp, says Washington attorney Joe diGenova, "is against the law...
...It is, in fact, among the most invasive, detailed, and embarrassingly personal questionnaires produced by the federal government...
...Speaking on Monday, the day the New Yorker hits the newsstand, Bernath comes off as straightforward enough, but his nothing-to-hide tone seems strangely out of character for the Defense Department...
...Second, in 1987, on a federal security-clearance form she filled out for her job at the Pentagon, Tripp answered no to a question asking whether she had ever been arrested...
...Listen," he says, "it took me two years just to get a permanent pass to get into the Pentagon...
...This is information that, again, was releasable...
...Beware of releasing such information for any reason at all...
...But wasn't the "X" on Tripp's form enough to cause her a fair amount of trouble and a good deal of bad publicity...
...Bernath promises to get back in touch in a day or two with the information...
...Not surprisingly, Morris's column caught the attention of Republicans on the Hill...
...Instead, Bernath appeals to common sense: "It comes down to a subjective thing...
...He never called...
...According to Caires, the Pentagon is so security conscious that it is often impossible for journalists to get the personnel records of military employees who have been dead for 30 years...
...Tripp's official files...
...It's a very serious charge," Bernath told the New York Times when the story appeared, apparently without mentioning his own role in its development...
...But that's not the only unusual thing about the recent flap over Linda Tripp's arrest record...
...Within hours Reps...
...An editorial in USA Today the next morning found the news equally serious...
...We would not do that at the Department of Justice...
...Look, says Bernath, it's not like the Pentagon gave out real information about Linda Tripp...
...No further details will be released pending the outcome of that review...
...Did Ken Bacon or Secretary Cohen ever admit to being arrested...
...Had you called up and asked for that information, your request would have been treated the same way...
...In this case, the subjective thing was, 'Well, this is decent information...
...For its part, the Pentagon isn't saying much about Linda Tripp these days...
...We released an 'X' in a box...
...Richard L. Huff, the co-director of the Office of Information and Privacy at the Justice Department, agrees...
...Linda Tripp, the editorial noted, "is accused of failing to disclose a 1969 arrest on a security clearance form...
...What about Ken Bacon, the Defense Department spokesman...
...If it turns out that the White House was the point of origin for Linda Tripp's file, there will be yet another scandal in Washington...
...It's a serious matter...
...But after hundreds of news stories and millions of dollars in legal bills on all sides, just about everybody in the federal government got the point: Beware of using—or even appearing to use—confidential personal information contained in government files for partisan political advantage...
...There is a United States Code on what's releasable," Bernath explains, though he admits, "I'm not sure I can put my hands on it right now...
...other words, for a cabinet secretary to talk about the incident on television...
...Wouldn't a reporter discover the answer either way...
...Bridges seems to be taking calls for the now-invisible Cliff Bernath, so it seems as good a time as any to ask whatever happened to The Weekly Standard's request for a peek at other security-clearance files...
...Bridges has an answer at the ready...
...Dick Bridges...
...For a moment, it seemed possible that Linda Tripp would face felony charges for making a false statement...
...For three years, diGenova investigated whether officials at the White House had used information from State Department archives in 1992 to confirm damaging rumors about then-candidate Bill Clinton...
...The Washington Post reported that Tripp's larceny charge, which was part of a teenage prank, was reduced by the judge to one count of loitering, a sub-misdemeanor offense considered so insignificant in New York state that it is not entered into a person's permanent record...
...Linda Tripp's security-clearance form contains a "contradiction of the truth," Secretary of Defense William Cohen told CNN a day before the New Yorker even arrived on newsstands...
...A day after the New Yorker story came out, former Clinton adviser Dick Morris wrote a column for the New York Post suggesting a conspiracy: "It was probably White House secret police operatives who visited courthouses to unearth records of Tripp's arrest (later expunged) on burglary charges when she was 19," Morris wrote, "and then ransacked Pentagon personnel files to show that Tripp had denied ever being arrested...
...Cohen has not yet responded officially, but his comments on the subject have changed quite a bit since his CNN appearance...
...I don't think we're going to go there...
...What do his security-clearance forms say...
...How did Jane Mayer, who wrote the Linda Tripp story for the New Yorker, get access to information in Tripp's personnel file...
...First, in the spring of 1969, Tripp, then 19, was arrested in the town of Greenwood Lake, New York, on charges of grand larceny...
...We've just learned about this matter, and it will be turned over to the investigative services...
...This entire incident is under review by the office of the general counsel in the Department of Defense," says defense spokesman Lt...
...Sinister scenarios bubbled up almost immediately...
Vol. 3 • March 1998 • No. 28
