BACON TRIPPS UP

Blake, after verifying Bernath’s title and phone number, requested a copy of that form — number 398 — from the Privacy Act Branch of the Defense Security Service. Once he had received it, he called Bernath to “ask him if he was requesting this information in an official capacity.” Bernath “assured” him that “this was an official request,” whereupon Blake informed him that, ” pursuant to the Privacy Act,” the security service would “be making a full accounting of this disclosure/release.” At 1:56 P.M., Blake faxed to Bernath three pages from Tripp’s security form. He also directed a colleague to indicate on another government form that the “disclosure/release” had taken place. At 1:58 P.M., Bernath called Blake to thank him — as well he might have. The circumstances of this business were unusual in the extreme. Blake — no doubt thinking to protect himself — wrote his memo.

Soon after, the whole country would know the contents of Linda Tripp’s security form, because they appeared in an article by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker magazine. Mayer had earlier learned that Tripp, when a teenager, was arrested for grand larceny in the hamlet of Greenwood Lake, N.Y. Mayer had then known to call Tripp’s employer, the Defense Department, with an amazingly precise question: How had Tripp responded to Question 21, parts a and b, on Form 398? The Pentagon was (atypically) quick with an answer for her — Tripp had indicated no arrests or detentions — and it seemed that the president’s nemesis was in trouble. Cliff Bernath told the New York Times that Tripp faced “a very serious charge.” Defense secretary Bill Cohen said on CNN that Tripp was guilty of “a contradiction of the truth,” which would be “looked into.”

But it soon became clear that Tripp’s arrest had been the result of a juvenile prank, perpetrated against her, and that the judge, recognizing this, had reduced the charge to one count of loitering, an infraction so trivial that it would not be recorded as an arrest. The Pentagon quickly dropped its investigation of Tripp. Instead, the spotlight turned to the department itself — specifically to Bernath, the public-affairs aide who had released the choice morsels about Tripp to Mayer, almost certainly in violation of the law. Republicans on Capitol Hill howled for a probe. The Pentagon shortly announced that it would conduct an internal investigation (one that continues, with no end in sight). Thus, a new Clinton scandal was born.

And it has received a new twist, with more sure to come. On April 30, Cliff Bernath was deposed by Judicial Watch, a conservative public-interest group that has besieged the administration with no fewer than 17 lawsuits. Its founder, Larry Klayman, has been almost as annoying to the president as Ken Starr. And it was in furtherance of his FBI-files suit — in which he represents aggrieved Republicans — that Klayman brought Bernath to the witness table.

Bernath arrived at the deposition with a battery of government lawyers, from the Justice Department, the Defense Department, and the White House (in addition to one from Williams & Connolly appearing “on behalf of the first lady,” a defendant in the case). Over the next six hours, Bernath told a story sharply different from the one he had offered when the Mayer article was published. Then, he had claimed that his release of the information was routine, that he was responding in a totally unremarkable manner to a reporter’s ho-hum request. He further maintained that be believed his disclosure to be exculpatory of his employee, Tripp: “It seemed like good news.” If Tripp had indicated on her form that she had indeed been arrested or detained, said Bernath, “we definitely wouldn’t have released that.”

But Bernath had known better. He preserved some of the evidence, too. When he was transferred to another office in mid-April, he erased all of his computer files, but retained notes he had made into his Palm Pilot, a small, hand-held device. These notes were subpoenaed in Klayman’s suit. And they, along with Bernath’s oral testimony, document an unusual sequence of events.

On Thursday night, March 12, around 7:30, Mayer called the assistant defense secretary for public affairs, Ken Bacon, a former colleague of hers and Bernath’s superior. Before his appointment at the Pentagon, Bacon had been for 25 years a reporter and editor at the Wall Street Journal, where Mayer, too, had once worked. Later that evening, Bacon told Bernath that “he had received a call from Jane,” who “indicated that Ms. Tripp may have had a problem when she was young.” Even before speaking to Bernath, Bacon had ” already discussed the query” with David Cooke, the Pentagon’s director of administration and management. Bacon instructed Bernath to call Cooke the next morning to see whether he “had obtained the information and then to follow up” with Mayer.

At around 8:30 on Friday morning, Bernath phoned Cooke and then went to see him in his office. Cooke had already put his hands on Tripp’s Form 171, the standard government-employment document that serves as both application and resume. Form 171, too, includes a question about arrest and detention. That, however, would not suffice, “since the specific question that came from Ms. Mayer was regarding [Tripp’s] security form.” So Bernath asked Cooke for Tripp’s 398, and “that’s when he referred me to” Steve O’Toole, director of personnel security. O’Toole turned out ot have “some information, but the 398 was not part of it.” So O’Toole sent Bernath to Les Blake, the file custodian and memo-writer. Cooke told Bernath that “it was all right for me to get the form,” but “didn’t comment on what I could do or could not do with it.”

At about 9:00 A.M., Bernath placed his first call to Mayer. According to notes he made at the time, Bernath “told her I was working on [an] answer to her question” and that “Ken [Bacon] has made clear it’s priority.” Bernath also noted that Mayer was concerned whether the “question on the security form pertains to ‘arrested’ or ‘convicted.'” After receiving the fax from Blake, Bernath again talked to Mayer, who said, “What if I had information that that information [provided by Tripp on the security form] is not true?” Bernath told her that this would constitute “a serious circumstance, and it would have to be investigated” — the same thing he and his department would subsequently tell the press in general. Later Friday afternoon, advance copies of Mayer’s New Yorker piece were faxed to the media, becoming the talk of the weekend news shows, and Tripp’s life became yet more complicated.

But so did Bernath’s and Bacon’s. The next week, their boss, Secretary Cohen, was furious, and Cohen’s chief of staff gave Bernath a severe dressing- down, citing “gross stupidity.” Bernath recorded that Cohen had been ” suprised at a press conference,” and “that’s bad.” Of course, the job that had been done on Linda Tripp was bad, too. One congressional investigator describes it as a “targeted hit,” which “stank to high heaven from the minute it broke.” Ken Bacon admitted at a March 26 press conference that “we’re learning new things every day about the Privacy Act.” And he is about to learn more.

Judicial Watch is set to depose Bacon on May 15. Bernath confirmed in his deposition of April 30 that Bacon, along with Bernath himself, is under internal investigation, because, in Bernath’s words, “I didn’t do it on my own.” The important question is, Did Bacon do it on his own? Bacon told the Washington Post that Bernath’s testimony was “not accurate,” but would say no more.

It strains credulity, however, to believe that Bacon, in the midst of the biggest scandal to hit Washington since Watergate, occupying the sensitive position of chief spokesman in a famously cautious department, sought no guidance from the White House. So who on Clinton’s team ordered Bacon’s cooperation? Was it perhaps Sidney Blumenthal, another former colleague of Mayer’s? Bacon has shown himself a most reliable administration appointee. He hired Monica Lewinsky as his “confidential assistant” at a time when the White House was eager to unload her, and his office had already taken the troublesome Tripp (resulting in the fateful friendship). Did Bacon then agree to be the instrument of Tripp’s destruction, hungrily sought by the White House? Ex-presidential adviser Dick Morris — who knows the Clinton operation well — is one who finds it inconceivable that Mayer simply stumbled on an embarrassing fact about Tripp and that Bacon, all by himself, with no authorization, let fly damaging data from Tripp’s security file.

Neither Bacon nor Bernath nor Les Blake nor Jane Mayer would talk to THE WEEKLY STANDARD. (Mayer herself has been subpoenaed in the Judicial Watch suit. Phone calls to her are now answered by her lawyer, First Amendment heavyweight Floyd Abrams). There is one Clintonite, though, who is firmly on the record as to his feelings in this area: the president himself. In the fall of 1992, candidate Bill Clinton was exercised — rightly — when it was revealed that political appointees in George Bush’s State Department had rooted through his passport files, along with those of his mother. In his first press conference as president-elect, he declared, “If I catch anybody doing it, I will fire them the next day. You won’t have to have an inquiry or rigmarole or anything else.”

Yet the inquiries and rigmarole continue. And the questions wait for answers.

March 13, 1998

 

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

 

SUBJECT: Release of Investigative information regarding Linda Tripp.

On March 13, 1998 I received a phone call from a Mr. Clifford Bernath (ASDPA). Mr. Bernath indicated he was seeking for official business some information contained on Ms. Linda R. Tripp’s prior DD Form 398. Specifically, how she answered the question regarding “have you ever been arrested charged, cited or held by law enforcement authorities.” I informed Mr. Bernath that we would have to pull her file and we would provide him the information. After verifying Mr. Bernath’s title and phone number, I contacted Mr. Jay Demarco, DSS Privacy Act Branch, and requested he review Ms. Tripp’s 1997 DD Form 398 and fax me a copy. Upon receipt of the 398 I called Mr. Bernath and informed him I had the information he was looking for and ask him if he was requesting this information in an official capacity. Mr. Bernath assured me that this was an official request. I informed Mr. Bernath as such, pursuant to the Privacy Act, DSS will be making a full accounting of this disclosure/release to him. At 13:56 I faxed Ms. Tripp’s 1987 DD Form 398 (3 pages) to Mr. Bernath. I also emailed Mr. Demarco and had him indicate on the PIC Form 2 that a release of Tripp’s was made to ASDPA (Bernath) on this date.

Les Blake

Chief, Office of FOIA

and Privacy

Jay Nordlinger is associate editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.