Tom Harkin: “So now we have the involvement of Linda Tripp giving information to Paula Jones' attorneys. From about late October…”

“So now we have the involvement of Linda Tripp giving information to Paula Jones' attorneys. From about late October, early November until January 1998, a lawyer by the name of Jerome Marcus in Philadelphia, who has done extensive work for the Jones legal team, had been talking to a friend of his, Paul Rosenzweig, a prosecutor in Mr. Starr's office, about the Lewinsky matter. We didn't know the exact nature of these discussions, but we do know they talked a number of times. But we do know that on January 8 Marcus contacted Rosenzweig and told him about the relationship of Monica Lewinsky and the President. Right after this, Linda Tripp contacts the Office of Independent Counsel to talk about Lewinsky and tells them about the tapes she has made, the telephone tapes, the tapes of her telephone conversations with Monica Lewinsky. The day after that, Tripp is wired by FBI agents working with Starr, meets with Lewinsky, and records their conversation without Lewinsky's knowledge--and doing this without any authorization to do it. They didn't get it until 4 days later. Now, all this is done prior to President Clinton ever giving a deposition or testifying before a grand jury. And so Clinton has done nothing yet in terms of testifying. So one might ask, What was Starr and his team after? If, in fact, this was a consensual sexual relationship between Clinton and a young woman who was an adult, what did it have to do with Whitewater or anything else they were investigating?”