With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

For the story behind the story...

Saturday, Feb. 10, 2001 11:32 a.m. EST

Tripp: Hillary Directed Waco, Bill Abused Monica

Hillary Clinton pressured the late Vince Foster to resolve the 1993 Waco standoff in a move that led to the deaths of more than 80 men, women and children, former White House aide Linda Tripp charged in an interview Friday night.

Tripp also alleged that Monica Lewinsky was more of a victim of Bill Clinton's sexual predations than the former White House intern has publicly acknowledged.

Appearing on CNN's "Larry King Live," Tripp suggested that Foster, at Mrs. Clinton's direction, transmitted the order to move on the Branch Davidian's Waco compound, which culminated in a military-style tear gas attack on the wooden structure.

The compound burst into flames hours later as federal troops used a U.S. Army tank to ram the building and insert flammable gas.

Tripp described Foster's demeanor as "dignified, decent, caring, smart" during his earlydays at the White House. But when Waco happened, she said, "that's when I first knewthat Vince was falling apart."

Foster was found shot to death in a Virginia park three months later.

Tripp said she was with the former deputy White House counsel when the news of the Waco assault broke on television.

"A special bulletin came on showing the atrocity at Waco and the children. And his face, his whole body slumped, and his face turned white, and he was absolutely crushed knowing - knowing the part he had played."

"And he had played the part at Mrs. Clinton's direction," charged Tripp.

Tripp was stunned by the contrast between Foster's heartfelt emotion at the Waco tragedy and what she observed from Mrs. Clinton.

"Her reaction, on the other hand, was heartless," Tripp told King, adding, "I can only tell you what I saw."

When asked how the decision to move on Waco was transmitted, Tripp said, "Foster, Mrs. Clinton, [deputy Attorney General] Webb Hubbell, [Attorney General] Janet Reno."

Tripp's new charge corroborates allegations first leveled in the 1999 documentary on the deadly confrontation, "Waco: A New Revelation."

In the film, director Michael McNulty included the account of former House Waco investigator T. March Bell.

"One of the interesting things that happens in an investigation is that you get anonymous phone calls," Bell explains in the film.

"And we in fact received anonymous phone calls from Justice Department managers and attorneys who believe that pressure was placed on Janet Reno by Webb Hubbell, pressure that came from the first lady of the United States."

At the film's premiere, Bell told NewsMax.com that phone logs obtained by House investigators indicated that Mrs. Clinton, Foster and Hubbell worked on Waco together.

"Those phone logs were Webb Hubbell's phone logs. There were calls from the first lady and Vince Foster to Webb Hubbell's office" during the Waco crisis, he said.

Bell said Mrs. Clinton grew more and more impatient as the Waco standoff came to dominate the headlines during the early months of the Clinton administration. It was she, Bell's source claims, who pressured a reluctant Janet Reno to act.

Reno, on the other hand, was not enthusiastic about launching the assault, said Bell. "Give me a reason not to do this," she is said to have begged aides.

In another explosive revelation, Tripp charged that the president's relationship with Monica Lewinsky included an element of abuse.

"This was abuse of a child," she told King. "Don't ever believe that this was consensual sex. And [Clinton] went to extraordinary lengths to cover that up. Criminal lengths."

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