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With so many pages being issued, what will the press and public focus on? Republicans and Democrats will be waving their arms frantically, trying to draw the public's attention to the evidence that bolsters their side's case. So far, the Democrats have had the upper hand in this data-dump game because the charges against Clinton have been so thoroughly aired. At this point, more sleazy details about the affair can only hurt the Republicans, who will get blamed for releasing them.
All last week Clinton's friends on Capitol Hill--and suddenly there were plenty more of them to be found--were using one argument after another to stoke the public's burgeoning pro-Clinton sentiment in hopes of derailing the impeachment train. Democrats called the process partisan and unfair, and charged Starr with omitting or downplaying exculpatory evidence in his report (such as Lewinsky's statement that she was never asked to lie). Next they will likely focus on Tripp.
If Democrats can make the case that Tripp helped engineer the key obstruction-of-justice charge now leveled against the President--that the job hunt was a setup devised by her--it goes to the heart of the case against Clinton. Since the apparent obstruction was Starr's pretext for investigating the entire affair, the Clintonites say, the basis for the probe was fundamentally illegitimate. The new details, says presidential counselor Doug Sosnik, "only reinforce that this is a 10-month overhyped case highlighted by groundless charges of obstruction of justice." That has long been the White House line, but the new details give the argument added weight.
Starr allies counter that the notion that the independent counsel had no right to investigate the Lewinsky case because he gained jurisdiction on the basis of a false statement is absurd. At the time, they point out, there was no way of knowing the truthfulness of the statement by Monica to Tripp that she would not sign her affidavit until Jordan produced a job. And regardless of what prompts an investigation, facts discovered in the process of proving or disproving the original allegation are fair game. The argument, says a Starr ally, "fits the pattern of trying to politicize a legal case to divert attention from the facts and the law."
How culpable is Tripp? Lewinsky did not need much encouragement to throw herself at Clinton--as Monica admits, she was in love and obsessed--but it was her bad luck that her adult confidant worked so hard to fuel the obsession. As Lewinsky said in her testimony, "obviously there's work that I need to do on myself." But instead of helping Lewinsky do that work--perhaps even talking some sense into her--Tripp went to work on her.
Tripp's lawyers deny she was an agent provocateur. They say she made the tapes to protect herself--if she told the truth about the affair in a Jones deposition, she'd need some evidence--and that she wanted Lewinsky to keep the stained dress as protection against potential White House charges that Monica was a delusional stalker. Far from trying to set Lewinsky up, they say, Tripp was trying to shield her. If she pointed out the storytelling benefits of a presidential affair, she also called the relationship "sick" and urged Monica to end it. And she asked Monica to let Clinton know the secret was out and that Tripp would have no choice but to disclose it under oath.