Linda Tripp Net Worth

Net Worth	$ 40,000,000
Real name	Linda Rose Carotenuto
Source of Wealth	Lawsuits
Profession	Civil Servant
Spouse/Partner	Dieter Rausch
Date of Birth	Nov 24, 1949
Zodiac	Sagittarius
Age	73
Died	Apr 8, 2020
Gender	Female
Height	172 cm / 5 ft 7 inch
Nationality	American

Biography

Linda Tripp was an American civil servant who is mostly known for having a major impact in the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky misconduct that took place in 1998.

Linda secretly recorded Lewinsky’s phone calls with then-President Bill Clinton. Tripp was Lewinsky’s coworker; she was employed at the Pentagon.

At the time of her death in 2020, Linda Tripp’s net worth was estimated at $40 million.

Early life

Linda Tripp, born Linda Rose Carotenuto in Jersey, New Jersey, was the daughter of Albert, a math and science teacher, and Inge, a German woman Albert met as an American soldier.

Albert had an affair that caused their marriage to fall apart in 1968. Linda graduated high school at Hanover Park in East Hanover, New Jersey, that same year, and later got a job as an Army secretary in Maryland. In 1971, Linda got married to Bruce Tripp, an officer. She had two children from this marriage, a son and a daughter. The couple split up and filed for divorce in 1990.^[1]

Career

Linda started off as an Army Intelligence secretary in Maryland in 1968.

Linda was initially an employee while George Bush was still president, but she kept her job when Clinton got into office.

She was transferred to the White House Counsel in 1993. By 1994, she was promoted to the Pentagon public affairs office, where she made $20,000 more than her previous salary.

Tripps’s connivance in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal

Linda Tripp and Monica Lewinsky became close acquaintances while being coworkers in the Pentagon office. Tripp was significantly older than Lewinsky, but Lewinsky confided in Linda by confessing that she and then-President Clinton were having a physical affair.

Based on advice from a literary agent, Tripp started illegally and secretly recording their phone conversations. Tripp also advised Lewinsky to document her relationship with Clinton.

In 1997, another name meddled in Clinton-related affairs; Kathleen Willey. According to Linda Tripp, Willey came out of Clinton’s Oval Office with her makeup ruined. Willey later stated that Bill Clinton touched her, but his lawyers stated that ‘Tripp was not to be believed’.

Consequently, in 1998, Linda Tripp gave all the tapes she had recorded to an independent counsel in exchange for immunity from being prosecuted for illegally recording them. By this time, the Clinton v. Jones lawsuit was already happening. Tripp claimed that Lewinsky filed a fake affidavit where she denied having a physical relationship with the president to the Arkansas court.

Submitting the tapes changed the whole trial, which ultimately helped prove that the Clinton-Lewinsky relationship did, in fact, exist, and the allegations from the third woman that was mentioned - Kathleen Willey, who claimed the President had groped her, turned out to be true.

As a result, one of the biggest Supreme Court decisions happened - US presidents were not allowed to receive immunity in civil lawsuits for things they had done before taking office, and unrelated to the office.

Tripp did not stop her meddling there, however. One of the key factors that determined the truth was a blue dress Lewinsky wore and had shown to Tripp, where Clinton’s bodily fluid could still be found. As Linda stated, Lewinsky showed her the dress and told her she was going to get it cleaned, while Tripp advised her otherwise. The dress was a big breakthrough.

Due to Tripp’s recordings, the independent counsel managed to expand the investigation to check for Lewinsky’s perjury incident, and her false testimonies in the Clinton v. Jones trial.

In the end, both Lewinsky & Clinton had to come to a grand jury, and when Lewinsky was asked for final words, she stated: “I hate Linda Tripp.”^[2]

Other controversies

Linda Tripp’s recordings of Clinton and his mistress, Lewinsky, were illegally taken. As a result, 49 Democrats from the Maryland Legislature signed a petition for Tripp to be prosecuted for Mayland’s wiretap law. However, Tripp’s agreement of immunity with the independent counsel’s office played a huge part.

Tripp did get to pre-trial, and Lewinsky was called in as a witness. Due to Lewinsky’s confession of lying under oath and admitting that ‘lying was a part of her life’, her testimony could not be considered credible. All charges against Tripp were dropped in 2000, and the case did not reach trial.

Another thing that came to the surface from Tripp’s life was her arrest when she was 19 years old. Reportedly, she stole $263 in New York, and a watch estimated to be worth $600. The charges were dropped before the case reached trial. This information got leaked from a closed file while her Lewinsky-related investigation was still taking place. However, this information was not taken as credible due to a violation of a Privacy Act.

In 2001, Tripp was fired from her Pentagon job. According to Linda, her losing the job was a result of vindictiveness, but the administration claimed that politically appointed employees are always asked to resign when a new party is taking office. Refusing to do so only results in them getting fired.

In 2003, Tripp sued the US Department of Defense and the Department of Justice due to the leaked information from the security and employment file, which was a clear violation of the Privacy Act. She managed to get a settlement from the government. The settlement included: a single payment of over $595,000, retroactive promotion, retroactive pay at the highest salary from 1998, 1999, and 2000, and pension, and she got cleared to work for the government.

Tripp’s life after the Lewinsky-Clinton scandals

Linda Tripp remarried a German architect, and moved to Virginia. In 2003, she appeared on the Larry King show, where she openly discussed her life with breast cancer.

On the same show, Tripp stated that she didn’t really make any money from the trials related to the scandals due to high fees for attorneys and the loss of her government career. According to her, Clinton’s administration leaking private information was way worse than her wiretapping their conversations, even though both actions were invasions of privacy.

Tripp passed away due to pancreatic cancer at the age of 70.^[3]

Conclusion

Linda Tripp’s life was eventful, to say the least, and followed by numerous controversies. She passed away at the age of 70 as a result of battling cancer, with a net worth of $40 million at the time of her passing.

References