Timeline:
The Assault on the Presidency

by Edward Spannaus and Jeffrey Steinberg

Printed in The Executive Intelligence Review, February 6, 1998.

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  • April 1991: Linda Tripp goes to work for the Bush White House as a political appointee, following a series of civil service jobs in the Department of Defense.

  • November-December 1992: At the recommendation of senior Bush administration people, the Clinton transition team hires Linda Tripp as an administrative assistant.

  • January-March 1993: After working initially for Presidential aide Bruce Lindsey, Tripp is assigned to the Office of Legal Counsel, working for Bernard Nussbaum and sometimes for Vincent Foster.

  • Winter 1993: Tony Snow, a conservative columnist on the payroll of Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV, introduces New York City literary agent Lucianne Goldberg to Linda Tripp, as Goldberg is seeking contracts for anti-Clinton books.

  • Feb. 11, 1994: Paula Jones holds a press conference, claiming she had been accosted by Governor Clinton.

  • March-April 1994: The Sunday Telegraph's Washington bureau chief, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, holds a series of meetings with Paula Jones and her lawyers, pressing her to file a lawsuit against the President.

  • April 1994: Tripp is transferred from her White House job to a position at the Pentagon. Clinton loyalists have already become suspicious that Tripp has been a ``mole'' for Republican Get Clinton forces. Tripp lies to colleagues at the Pentagon that she was expelled from the White House because she ``knew too much about Whitewater.''

  • May 5, 1994: Paula Jones files her lawsuit against Bill Clinton. She receives extensive financial support from conservative and evangelical legal foundations, most of them funded by Richard Mellon Scaife.

  • Summer 1994: Kenneth Starr is preparing a pro bono legal brief for women's groups supporting Paula Jones. He is simultaneously doing work for the Landmark Legal Foundation, one of the groups bankrolled by Mellon Scaife.

  • Aug. 5, 1994: Starr is named to replace Robert Fiske as Whitewater independent counsel. The three-judge selection panel is headed by Appellate Court Judge David Sentelle.

  • Summer 1995: Monica Lewinsky becomes an unpaid intern in the White House. She is later given a paid job there, answering correspondence.

  • July-August 1995: Tripp testifies before the Senate Whitewater committee about events surrounding the death of Vincent Foster.

  • April 17, 1996: Lewinsky is transferred to the Pentagon.

  • Autumn 1996: Lewinsky meets Tripp.

  • November 1996: Starr begins questioning Arkansas state troopers about Clinton's extramarital affairs, although there is no clear mandate for this line of investigation.

  • Spring 1997:Newsweek's Michael Isakoff first meets Linda Tripp, while Isakoff is working on the Paula Jones case. Lucianne Goldberg attends some of the Tripp-Isakoff meetings.

  • August 1997: Tripp speaks to Newsweek about an alleged sexual encounter between President Clinton and Kathleen Willey.

  • Aug. 11, 1997: President Clinton's personal attorney, Robert Bennett, attacks Tripp's credibility after the Willey story breaks in the news, and Willey denies the Tripp allegations.

  • Late August 1997: Linda Tripp begins taping phone conversations with Monica Lewinsky.

  • October 1997: Tripp and Isakoff meet with Lucianne Goldberg, in Joshua Goldberg's Washington apartment. Tripp plays several of the Lewinsky tapes for Goldberg.

  • Autumn 1997: The Rutherford Institute, which is now representing Paula Jones, reportedly receives three anonymous phone calls from a woman, alerting them to a Lewinsky-Clinton ``affair.'' Earlier, an anonymous call, also from a woman, had reportedly tipped off the Rutherford lawyers about Katherine Willey.

  • Dec. 17, 1997: Lewinsky and Tripp are subpoenaed by Jones's lawyers, to be depositioned for the upcoming civil suit against the President.

  • Dec. 26, 1997: Lewinsky leaves her job at the Pentagon.

  • Jan. 7, 1998: Lewinsky signs an affidavit denying that she had had an affair with President Clinton.

  • Jan. 10-12, 1998: Sometime during this 72-hour period, Linda Tripp brings her tapes to Kenneth Starr.

  • Jan. 13, 1998: Tripp meets Lewinsky at Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Pentagon City, Virginia; Tripp is wearing a wire, with FBI agents in hiding. At this point, Starr still has no jurisdiction to probe the Lewinsky matter.

  • Jan. 15, 1998: Starr meets Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder and requests expansion of his investigative authority.

  • Jan. 16, 1998: Reno applies to the three-judge panel for expansion of Starr's investigation. The request is immediately approved.

  • Jan. 16, 1998: Starr interviews Hillary Clinton under oath at the White House.

  • Jan. 16, 1998: Tripp meets Lewinsky at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel; FBI agents grab Lewinsky and bring her up to a hotel suite, where they try to compel her to take immunity--without a lawyer present--and then attempt to entrap Vernon Jordan and President Clinton's personal secretary, Betty Currie.

  • Jan. 18, 1998: Clinton's deposition is taken in Paula Jones case.

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The preceding article is a rough version of the article that appeared in The Executive Intelligence Review. It is made available here with the permission of The Executive Intelligence Review. Any use of, or quotations from, this article must attribute them to The Executive Intelligence Review.

Top of Page Assault on the Presidency Site Map Overview Page

The preceding article is a rough version of the article that appeared in The Executive Intelligence Review. It is made available here with the permission of The Executive Intelligence Review. Any use of, or quotations from, this article must attribute them to The Executive Intelligence Review.

Publications and Subscriptions for sale.

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EIR Issue, March 13, 1998: The Olson-Starr Salon: Plotting Against the President -- $10.00

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