MIDDLEBURG -- Linda Tripp is going into business with the Christmas Sleigh, a year-round holiday shop scheduled to open next month in Virginia horse country.
After her involvement in the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton, Tripp moved to a cottage near Middleburg, about 40 miles west of Washington.
Is the business still there? The article is from GoogleCache, the orginal is gone. Anyone know? Will the 600 Grand go to bailing this out? Inquiring minds, etc....
Update/Correction: Sullywatch correctly points out that this was not as a result of a Federal FOIA request, but rather as a result of a reporter's quite accurate questioning of the Pentagon procedures involved in "clearing" Ms. Tripp. The Pentagon "mistakenly" released accurate information, that Ms. Tripp considered/contended was private. An arrest record, never disclosed.
Mayer found Tripp’s step-mother, who blurted out that Tripp had been arrested. The step-mother, who has confirmed that she was the source of this information, and gave Mayer sufficient detail to allow her to file an FOIA request, and to track down Tripp’s arrest record from the local police station where she was busted.
...
But with the help of a huge network of right-wing lawyers and press outlets, Tripp turned her potentially felonious lie, and her felony arrest history into a cause celebre, shifting all blame for her own miserable conduct onto the Pentagon, and claiming falsely yet again, that somehow the government had released her arrest record and tarred her name. She tarred her own name. The government (incorrectly) denied she had an arrest record. Mayer wrote the story, straight.
From the Alterman piece.
posted by Jo Fish on 11.05.03 at 12:37 AM
Comments:
To be accurate, Jo, Tripp’s records (Alterman has a great post on this, linked at Eschaton) were not produced by a FOIA request as they could not have been.
What happened is that Jane Mayer learned of the felony arrest and subsequent plea from Tripp’s stepmother. She got the original arrest record from the upstate New York village police department where it happened. Knowing that her security-clearance paperwork required her to disclose all arrests no matter what the disposition, Mayer asked the Pentagon's press office if she had made such a disclosure. Since there was no disclosure, the Pentagon felt free to confirm that without violating privacy laws. FOIA (the federal version, anyway) was never invoked.
Ah, SW thanks for the info. I had read that there was a FOIA request, or that this had been handled initially as one...I'll see if I can track down where I read it.
Too bad they never found it (this little un-truth earlier) a TS is most unforgiving when adjudicated against something like this, it might have made interesting material when she 'refused' to resign from the Pentagon. Too little, too late. Still got a pile of dough.
posted by: Shag from Brookline on 11.05.03 at 06:58 AM [permalink]
Couldn't find "Christmas Sleigh" in Yahoo's Middleburg Yellow Pages. Which means nothing.
Middleburg - prime Virginia horse county, toney antique shops, playground of the Virginia aristocracy and sky-high prices. That payoff (oops) settlement won't get her very far in that spot of the country.
