Linda Tripp, a former figure in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, is lashing out at those who are only belatedly condemning Bill Clinton for his conduct, having herself long ago concluded he was a ‘predator.’
The string of headlines about powerful men abusing their status and harassing women ‘is forcing me to relive a lot of it,’ said Tripp, who befriended Lewinsky and then recorded conversations about Lewinsky’s affair with the president and handed over information to prosecutors.
Trip spoke after recent criticism of former President Bill Clinton by some Democrats – including New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who says Clinton should have resigned over the scandal.
‘It’s a day late, and it’s a dollar short,’ Trip told the Washington Examiner.
Democrats ultimately rallied around the president during his impeachment by the Republican Congress, and House Republicans paid a price during the midterm elections.
Linda Tripp, pictured talking to reporters outside of the Federal Courthouse 29 July 1998 in Washington, is lashing out at those who are belatedly condemning Bill Clinton for his conduct
‘What information do they have at their fingertips today that they didn’t have 20 years ago?’ Tripp said. ‘What information has changed?’
She also went after those who argue that Clinton’s offenses took place during a different era with different mores.
‘I’m so weary of hearing that society’s mores have changed, when I knew that this was an abuse of, essentially, a kid,’ said Tripp.
Tripp acknowledged that Lewinsky was 22 at the time she was an intern and had a sexual affair with the president. But she said it would be inaccurate to say Lewinsky was a ‘woman’ at that point in her life, comparing her instead to a young ‘groupie’ and calling her a ‘kid.’
She disputed a primary argument put forth by Clinton and his legal team: that it was a consensual affair between adults, and there for not the kind of conduct worthy of impeachment.
Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, right, is shown with former White House aide Linda Tripp in an undated photo taken from television on Jan. 27, 1998
New York Democratic senator Kirsten Gillibrand said President Bill Clinton should have resigned over the scandal
‘It was neither of those things,’ Tripp told the pubication. ‘It was not consensual, and it was not an affair. It was a servicing agreement on his part.’
‘She was a kid. She may have been 22 and had a voluptuous body and was misguided in her choices, but emotionally, she was 15 — a groupie. It reminded me of myself with the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five in the early ’60s. That same obsession. To say that Monica Lewinsky was a woman at that point in her life was a stretch beyond comprehension,’ said Trip.
Tripp says Lewinsky was akin to a ‘groupie’ who should not be considered to have been a woman who began an affair with Clinton when she was a 21-year-old intern
Tripp says Lewinsky was ’emotionally 15′ at the time of the affair
Of Clinton, who she worked for in the White House in the 1990s, Tripp said: ‘He is a predator, by pattern.’
She characterized criticism of Clinton by Democrats now as a low-risk proposition.
‘They have nothing to lose, and this is now permissible,’ Trip, who lives in northern Virginia says. ‘The fact that the Clintons are dead in the water gives [the media] tacit approval to act like human beings.’ She called it ‘disingenuous.’