Tripp Not Immune From Prosecution in Maryland

Tripp Not Immune From Prosecution in Maryland
and
Affidavit Raises New Question About Leak to Newsweek

by The Editors

Does Linda Tripp have an orange suit in her future??
Tuesday, Dec. 14, 1999 --- New York (APJP) -- Score one for the good guys.

Howard County Circuit Judge Diane O. Leasure ruled today that Linda Tripp did not have federal immunity when she turned over secretly recorded tapes of her phone conversations with Monica Lewinsky to Kenneth Starr's Office of Independent Council.

The ruling is a victory for Maryland state prosecutors who intend to try Mrs. Tripp on wiretapping charges.

Judge Leasure ruled that Mrs. Tripp's immunity did not begin until Feb. 19, 1998, when a federal judge signed an immunity order. Lawyers for Tripp had attempted to argue that Tripp's immunity began on Jan. 16, 1998, the day Tripp turned over her notorious tapes to prosecutors working with Starr.

And another development has raised new questions concerning how the tapes went public.

This morning's Baltimore Sun reports that deputy independent counsels Jackie M. Bennett Jr. and Bruce Udolf turned over one of Tripp's tapes of Monica Lewinsky to Tripp's lawyer, James Moody, during a midnight rendezvous in a Howard Johnson's in Washington on January 16, 1998 -- a tape that was delivered to Newsweek magazine mere hours later.

Quoting from the article:

"According to an affidavit by Starr aide Stephen Bates, Starr's deputies knew that Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff had been badgering Moody for a copy of the Tripp tapes, saying he was preparing a negative article about Tripp. Within hours, if not minutes, of the midnight exchange, Moody gave the tape to Isikoff, who played it for his editors."

Interestingly, the revelation undercuts the assumption that the Tripp tapes were leaked to Isikoff by Lucianne Goldberg, a friend of Tripp who had discussed the possibility of representing the Pentagon employee as her literary agent.

The revelation raises new questions concerning a pattern and practice of press leaks emanating from Starr's office.

The story continues to develop as we go to press.