Tripp’s Agent Takes Blame for Questionable Taping of Lewinsky

ELLICOTT CITY, Md. — New York book agent Lucianne Goldberg said Thursday that it’s her fault Linda Tripp faces criminal charges for secretly tape-recording telephone conversations with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky.

“I take all the blame,” Goldberg told reporters after testifying for about 1 1/2 hours before a Howard County grand jury.

The jury is considering whether Tripp, a county resident employed by the Pentagon, broke Maryland wiretapping law by recording about 20 hours of conversations with Lewinsky.

Under the law, all parties to a conversation must consent to any taping. To win a conviction, Maryland prosecutors would need to prove that the violation was committed in full knowledge of the law.

The tapes led to independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s investigation of Lewinsky’s affair with President Clinton.

The maximum penalty for breaking Maryland’s wiretapping law is five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Goldberg said Thursday that Tripp asked her in September 1997 if recording her calls with Lewinsky would be appropriate. Goldberg said she asked an associate to research the matter on the Internet, then incorrectly told Tripp that recording was legal.

She said she told Tripp that “she’d better tape her phone calls or she’d be destroyed.”

Goldberg dismissed reports that Tripp began recording the conversations to gather material for a book on presidential sex scandals.

Goldberg said she gave prosecutors tapes of two conversations she had with Tripp and two other tapes containing conversations between Lewinsky and Tripp that took place from Sept. 28 to Oct. 6 last year, before Tripp learned the taping was illegal, she said.

State prosecutor Stephen Montanarelli is seeking evidence that Tripp knew the secret taping was illegal before she began in September 1997.