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Profile: Linda Tripp Linda Tripp Linda Tripp, a former White House special assistant, has an eerie knack for bearing witness to breaking scandals involving President Clinton. Tripp, 48, who worked in the Bush White House and stayed on as an aide to former White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum, recorded conversations with friend Monica Lewinsky in which Lewinsky alleged an affair with Clinton. THE PLAYERS Betty Currie Lucianne Goldberg Paula Jones Vernon Jordan Monica Lewinsky Kenneth Starr Linda Tripp Before that, Tripp was a source on an earlier Clinton scandal when she described Clinton fondling another friend of hers, former Clinton aide Kathleen Willey. And in 1996, Tripp disputed details of the White House version of events following the death of deputy counsel Vincent Foster. Tripp was the last person in the White House who remembered seeing Foster the day he died. Tripp is the ex-wife of a military officer and has two children. She was earning $48,000 annually as a White House special assistant in 1993. She now works as an $88,000-a-year public-affairs assistant at the Pentagon. It was after her transfer to the Pentagon in 1996 that she met Lewinsky. At the urging of book agent Lucianne Goldberg, Tripp decided to record her conversations with Lewinsky, who also had been shifted from the White House to the Pentagon. Then Tripp went to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr with the tapes. By Scripps Howard News Service