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🇦🇷 Argentina /Elections & Politics

“The president has a girlfriend”: Linda Tripp, the friend who betrayed Monica Lewinsky and secretly recorded her relationship with Bill Clinton

From La Nación · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources Outcome reported
  • Linda Tripp secretly recorded Monica Lewinsky, her Pentagon colleague and confidante, as Lewinsky discussed her relationship with President Bill Clinton in 1997.
  • The recordings helped bring the affair into the legal system and contributed to the impeachment trial Clinton later faced.
  • Tripp defended her actions years later, saying she did not regret them and would do the same again.

A young woman confides in a colleague about a hidden romance with a married man, saying, “I am frightened by how much he matters to me and how comfortable I feel by his side.” The colleague appears to offer a sympathetic ear. In reality, she is recording the conversation for another purpose.

The scene sounds like a television melodrama, but it took place in the United States in 1997. The young woman was Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern, and the man was President Bill Clinton. The colleague who listened and recorded her was Linda Tripp, Lewinsky’s co-worker at the Pentagon and, supposedly, her friend.

Tripp’s recordings eventually brought Lewinsky’s account of the relationship into the public scandal and the courts. Clinton, who was married to Hillary Clinton, would face an impeachment trial as a result. Tripp later said she acted to help Lewinsky. Asked years afterward whether she regretted what she had done, she answered: “No, I would do it again.”

I am frightened by how much he matters to me and how comfortable I feel by his side.

· Monica LewinskyThe article presents this as Lewinsky’s confidential description of her feelings about Clinton.

Lewinsky had worked at the White House since 1995, when she was 22 and assigned to the office of Chief of Staff Leon Panetta. Accounts later reconstructed how she first met Clinton alone in the Oval Office after bringing him a slice of pizza one night in November 1995. Their encounters continued for months.

In April 1996, as Clinton began preparing for re-election, advisers who knew about rumors of the affair recommended removing Lewinsky from the White House. The relationship combined questions about the presidency with Clinton’s marital infidelity, turning a private affair into a national political scandal.

No, I would do it again.

· Linda TrippTripp gave this answer years later when asked whether she regretted recording Lewinsky.
About this summary

Originally published by La Nación in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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