Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [343]
Displaying the flair that made her one of New York’s premiere literary divas, Goldberg added that she was paying a steep price herself. Already, the White House had sicced a bunch of photographers on her trail, following her day and night. “I would like to have gotten my roots done,” Goldberg said. “They caught me on the day I was headed for the hairdresser. You know, that’s hell for a woman.” When asked whether she had any regrets about assisting Tripp in making public this scandal, the Manhattan literary agent told the show’s host in a throaty voice, “[This] is going to save [Tripp] in the end.”
Tripp’s journey to the grand jury room seemed more like a visit to purgatory than a ticket to salvation. Tripp had abandoned her home in Columbia, Maryland; she had walked away from her desk at the Pentagon, as if leaving her job in suspended animation. The woman who had delivered over the Lewinsky story to OIC now moved around like a fugitive, staying with her mother in New Jersey, finding rooms at friends’ homes, staying at undisclosed hotel rooms paid for by the FBI. Tripp herself had even come under criminal scrutiny as the Pentagon announced it was investigating whether she had lied on government forms to obtain “top secret” clearance in 1987. On those official documents, Tripp had claimed that she had never been arrested. Now officials in Greenwood Lake, New York, released a police report indicating that Linda Carotenuto (her maiden name) had been arrested back in 1969 at Inn on the Lake, at the age of nineteen, in connection with the theft of $263 and a watch valued at $600. The case against her had been dismissed after a friend was found guilty of stealing and stashing the items in Tripp’s purse. Yet the Pentagon was still weighing whether to charge Tripp for making a “knowing and willful false statement” on her security clearance forms, a felony under federal law.
As Tripp showed up for her date with the grand jury, she issued an official statement: “The vicious personal attacks against me … and the general climate of threats, intimidation, McCarthyistic tactics, and guilt by association can only serve to deter those who in the future may dare to bring information to law enforcement officials.” Hoping to adjust her public image, Tripp did her best to portray herself as a woman deeply concerned with Lewinsky’s plight. “As a parent of children close to Monica’s age, I felt and continue to feel horror at the abuse of power and emotional anguish she has endured over a two-year period,” she stated. “I am disturbed by the smear campaign that maligns Monica. She is a bright, caring, generous soul—one who has made poor choices. She was not a stalker, she was invited.… Monica’s moral compass is her own. She, as anyone else, should not be forced to defend her private life as a fully orchestrated campaign is launched to discredit her.”
With her frizzy blond hair pulled back in a dignified style, and wearing white pearls to provide a classy accent to her blue business suit, Linda Tripp now arrived at the court house flanked by her son, Ryan (age twenty-three), and her daughter, Allison (age nineteen). The image she conveyed was that of a concerned mother and hardworking government employee who was caught in the cross fire, enduring this ignominious treatment for doing what was right. As the doors slammed shut behind her and she walked before the assembled grand jurors, however, Tripp was greeted with a healthy dose of skepticism.
The first order of business was for Tripp to give a disclaimer about her own immunity deal with Ken Starr’s office—which