Linda Tripp - A Basket of Deplorables

A POST HILL PRESS BOOK

A Basket of Deplorables:

What I Saw Inside the Clinton White House

2020 by Linda Tripp with Dennis Carstens

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 978-1-64293-772-5

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-64293-773-2

Linda Tripp cover photo used with permission from Getty Images.

This is a work of nonfiction. All people, locations, events, and situations are portrayed to the best of the authors memory.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Post Hill Press

New York Nashville

posthillpress.com

Published in the United States of America

Contents

In Memoriam

This book is dedicated to the memory of Linda Tripp Rausch. Her sudden, swift, and too-soon passing left a hole in the hearts of many. It was her enormous courage and love of country that led her to tell the truth about two of the most corrupt politicians in our nations history. Knowing she would be vilified from coast to coast by the protectors and enablers of these two extremely flawed people, she held forth and did America a great service. A book dedication and simple thank-you hardly seem adequate.

Rest in peace, heroic soul.

Prologue
by Linda Tripp

T his writing journey began as a personal journal more than ten years ago, eighteen years after I first met Bill and Hillary Clinton and fourteen years after the hurricane that was The Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal. As the years passed, it also became more difficult to ignore the aging process. As hurtful as the media portrayal of me was, I always thought one day I would have the courage to correct the record. That day was a nebulous someday and something I didnt have to think about now.

But now had suddenly arrived, and I began to think I was running out of time to tell the story from the perspective of someone who had been there. Most of what has been told, and specifically what has been written, has been by those whose real agenda was to continue as Clinton loyalists, always providing yet more cover for them. These self-proclaimed journalists were not in the Clinton White House and have universally gotten it wrong.

Some say I am the most notorious woman of all time. I knew that my family, principally my grandchildren, deserved to learn the truth as I had lived it before it was too late. A journal seemed to be the best solution. So, several years ago, I began to write. That journey would be a long one, with twists and turns, starts and stops, but in the end, it resulted in this book.

My comfort zone had always involved burying things I wanted to forget. I was extraordinarily good at compartmentalizing unpleasant memories and putting them in boxes. Out of sight, out of mind. But that is selfish, because this story is not about me. It is not even about Monica Lewinsky. Not really. It is about two of the most corrupt political operatives to ever grace the international stage. It is a story that needs to be told.

Slowly, my reticence began to change. There were instances over time that began to prompt me to take my head out of the sand. There were the countless retrospectives of that time. All seemed superficial; all seemed lacking. It all felt wrong. The continuing shenanigans of the Clintons are reminiscent of that which had come so many years before, notably during Hillarys run for the White House. Twice. Except for a few op-eds, I hadnt warned anyone. Added to that, I found myself feeling guilty that I had never spoken up. But it was not just the civil servant side of me that felt guilty. The personal side was worse.

Several instances happened in quick succession that prompted me to begin writing. There was the time my nephew, then in high school, told me that his Aunt Deedas he called mehad been a topic of discussion in his social studies class. His confusion about this and his questions bothered me. His father, my brother-in-law, would often joke: When are you going to write that book so I can finally know what really went on? And the worst was when my eldest granddaughter came home from school one day many years ago saying, Omi, I didnt know you were famous. Were you a bad person? I was at a loss for how to respond to this sweet six-year-old. She is now fourteen and deserves answers. And, not to sound too full of myself, so do the American people. History deserves perspective.

From the beginning, I had always had the full, unquestioned, and unwavering support of my amazing family and my closest friends. Yet during this ordeal, we never fully discussed what had happened, why it had happened, or why I had taken the extraordinary steps that I did. They simply stood by my side, knowing I would have done something so dramatic only for what I considered to be valid reasons. A part of me felt I owed this to them.

No one knew better than me the way I had been depicted in the media. And, as they say, the press drafts history; the books cement it for posterity. Often, truth is the accidental casualty.

And there were so many booksall written from an outsiders point of view, unfailingly from a political perspective, all by bystanders to history who chose to malign me as an avarice-driven political hack with a political agenda. My silence over those many years had allowed all of themJeffrey Toobin in A Vast Conspiracy , Michael Isikoff in Uncovering Clinton , and Sydney Blumenthal in The Clinton Wars , to name just a fewto define me. And in doing so, they framed the dialogue from their point of view while I stood silent.

These very same people had loudly and repeatedly accused me on national TV of being motivated by the desire to write a book. In that relatively new twenty-four-hour news cycle, it was a veritable cacophony, all asserting knowledgeably and in lockstep that I did what I had done motivated by greed. If you knew anything about me at that time, you would have thought from the repeated claims derisively alleging it was all about a book deal that I chose to turn the world upside down to sell books. Many of these same Clinton loyalists and protectors, within a year, wrote bestsellers. Apparently, the irony and hypocrisy were lost on them.

With all of this in mind, I began the laborious effort of writing a journal. One day, in the distant future, this would provide my family answers to all the questions, asked and unasked. They would finally have a level of understanding I had never provided before.

So, I wrote. And, as I revisited this painful time, I found myself bombarded with memories. Events long buried began to surface, and as I faced them all for the first time in so many years, I slowly began to realize that what I had lived, and what I had to say, was important.

My best friend, who lived this entire ordeal with me, had for decades encouraged me to write a book. It had never been an option. I told her of my decision to write the journal and, despite her urging, I assured her it would remain just that.

Slowly as my journal progressed, as I said, the memories flooded back. And once I found myself back in l993, I couldnt stop. My journal began to look more and more like a book I would like to read. I did nothing about it, but it was at this point that my journal began to be far more detailed.

A book. Could I do this after all? I had the vague and unarticulated sense that this was meant to be. As always, my trepidation surfaced, knowing that the very facts, as melodramatic as they were, could be construed as unadulterated Clinton bashing. That so many years after the fact, everything would still be seen through a political lens. That what I wrote could be considered questionable or perceived as vindictive or vengeful, inadvertently giving credence to those who said all those years ago that my agenda was political. If so, the obvious question to put to my critics would be: Why did she wait so long?