Linda Tripp Fired From Pentagon Job

Friday, January 19th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) â€” Lawyers for Linda Tripp said she was fired Friday in a final act of vengeance by President Clinton, whose impeachment was triggered by her secret tape recordings.

``The termination of Linda Tripp is vindictive, mean-spirited and wrong,'' her attorneys said in a statement. ``President Clinton should not have ended his presidency on such a vengeful note.''

Officials at the White House and Defense Department, where Tripp worked, said she was treated no differently from any other political appointee, whose jobs end with Clinton's term unless asked to stay by the incoming Bush administration.

``Everyone around here understood that we were leaving,'' said White House Spokesman Jake Siewert. ``And obviously they're welcome to hire her again if they'd like.''

Tripp's lawyers issued their statement just as Clinton reached a deal to settle the remaining legal issues from the Monica Lewinsky scandal. It was Tripp's recordings of her conversations with the former White House intern that led to the scandal.

Tripp, who earned $100,000 a year, was asked in recent days along with all other political appointees to resign in preparation for the change in administrations.

On advice of her attorneys, she refused to do so, in a letter sent Thursday, addressed to Clinton.

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, said ``it really doesn't matter'' that Tripp did not resign. He said Tripp was notified, as a matter of routine, that her appointment ended Friday.

``All political appointees' term of service ends at the end of an administration,'' Quigley said. ``That's how it works.''

Stephen Kohn, a Tripp lawyer, blamed Clinton for the dismissal on the ground that the ultimate responsibility for firing political appointees rests solely with the president.

``She was asked to voluntarily submit her resignation, and she was not threatened with dismissal if she failed to submit it,'' Kohn said. Tripp was out of the country Friday and unavailable for comment.

Tripp is suing the government, alleging the Clinton administration illegally released to The New Yorker magazine her statement on a security clearance form that she had never been arrested, when she had. She was arrested for grand larceny when she was a teen-ager and pleaded innocent. A judge disposed of the case by reducing the charge to loitering.

The Justice Department investigated the release of information but did not prosecute.

``She only became a political appointee after being fired by the White House,'' Kohn said. ``Her employer assisted in a smear campaign that renders her unemployable.''

The tape recordings Tripp gave to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr led to the perjury and obstruction of justice probe of Clinton, his impeachment by the House and a Senate trial that acquitted him.

Tripp's tapes also led to her indictment on state wiretapping charges in Maryland, where a judge's ruling forced prosecutors to abandon their criminal case.