Outed Tripp wins 595,000. How much should we pay Plame ?

The BBQ Pit
21

Oh for Christ’s sake, Minty. You should know, better than most being a litigator yourself, that all sorts of seemingly exorbitant payouts are agreed to in settlement negotiations. Anyway, I suspect that Tripp’s attorneys are going to eat up a very large chunk of that $595,000 and she’ll see more money from the salary adjustments than the cash award.

You’re upset because you think you see evidence of some Grand Conspiracy. Before you head down that path, it might be prudent to see what other settlement agreements have been reached for government breaches of the Privacy Act. I haven’t been able to find anything, but I’d be willing to bet you have better sources for information of this type than I. If you can demonstrate that this settlement is out of line with others resulting from similar violations, let’s see it. Then we can discuss the possibilities of a Grand Conspiracy. A conspiracy which may very well be true, but I think you’re jumping the gun at this point.

Yeah, I agree it stinks. But probably for different reasons than you do.

22

Not in such piddly-ass little cases as this. I’ve never, ever heard of an award of damages anywhere near this great for such a small breach of confidentiality. Never. Shit, she just got handed more money than many people who end up with severed limbs receive. And for what? For some dumbass at the Pentagon saying they had no record of her arrest as a 19-year-old?

The hell with that. You’ve got one of the most unsympathetic plaintiffs in the country, a jury pool in D.C. that is predisposed to detest her, and no fucking damages worthy of the name. Offer her $20 grand to go away or take her and her sorry ass apart in front of a jury.

I have neither asserted nor believe that this is the result of any conspiracy. I believe this resulted from simple appreciation for the plaintiff. I believe her attorneys came to the DoJ and asked for a shitload of money from attorneys who were basically happy enough to give it to her for her [dis]service to the country. If it were anyone else, they’d have given her squat.

23

Contrary to what I implied earlier, I agree that the state law violation is minimally relevant. minty makes an excellent point: it makes Ms. Tripp an especially unsympathetic defendant, which should factor into any settlement negotiation. A jury might well find for her and award her $1.

But all we have right now is El Gui’s summary of the Privacy Act violation. I’d want to see a bit more comprehensive cite before I hop on the It’s-Outrageous Bandwagon.

If the facts are precisely as El Gui laid out, then I think this settlement is not in the federal government’s best interest. I don’t know about “stinks to high heaven” but I agree that it’s whiff.

  • Rick
24

Joe Conason tells a story similar to El Gui’s. I’ll quote Conason’s second-to-last paragraph:

25

I sure wish they’d tell the New Yorker they knew of no arrests in my background…

26

Hmmm. If you say so. But didn’t the complaint also include allegations of improper treatment at the hands of the Defense Department unrelated to the Privacy Act? I realize Ms. Tripp is receiving compensation other than the lump sum cash award, but I don’t believe you can separate the pieces of the settlement quite that neatly. To claim that she’s receiving that six hundred grand for that one Privacy Act breach over-simplifies the situation.

You may be correct, and I apologize for misreading your ire if this turns out to be the case. However this is the same DoJ that allegedly mistreated Tripp previously in retaliation for her role in the Lewinsky affair. You now claim the DoJ appreciates the same “services” to the tune of $600,000? What a strange and schizophrenic DoJ we must have.

27

Hmmm…

According to CNN:

According to CNN, the fact of her arrest as a 19-year-old was leaked, rather than the claim that her arrest did not appear in DOD records.

So which is it?

  • Rick
28

I think I get it.

When I posted “Which is it?” above, I hadn’t read the Salon article (it required either premier membership or a one-day pass). I bit the bullet and watched the short ad to get a one-day pass.

If Salon is to be believed, the initial reports of Ms. Tripp’s arrest were not leaked by DOD. Instead, an intrepid reporter named Jane Mayer, who was investigating Tripp, learned of the 1969 arrest from Tripp’s stepmother. Ms. Mayer then filed a request at the local police station and got a copy of the arrest report.

Assuming this to be true, then, at first blush, DOD’s “leak” seems quite harmless: they simply revealed that they knew nothing about Ms. Tripp’s 1969 arrest.

However, the Privacy Act forbids that disclosure, and with good reason: by revealing that, they also revealed that Ms. Tripp had not disclosed her arrest as required when applying for her clearance. In other words, they revealed that Ms. Tripp lied to them.

In general, abssent the filing of criminal charges, employee misconduct and discipline are meant to be kept confidential. The DOD effectively announced, publicly, that Ms. Tripp had lied on her clearance forms, in the absence of any authority for them to make that announcement. And that announcement is certainly damaging to Ms. Tripp.

Of course, she brought the damage on herself. And of course, she’s remarkably unsympathetic, given that her claim to fame is the betrayal of private confidences under the guise of friendship for purely partisan and mean-spirited ends.

But those two are legally unrelated.

The DOD disclosure was material, and it’s deserving of some settlement.

I tend to agree that the $595,000 is off by an order of magnitude, however.

  • Rick
29

Joe Conason needs to read the settlement agreement. *A link to which one can find right alongside his story.*

Joe Conason is mistaken in his claim that “Tripp is being paid almost $600,000 because Pentagon spokesmen told the New Yorker that the Defense Department knew of no arrests in her background.” There are, as I said, other things that money is being awarded for - the mistreatment by the Defense Department and Tripp’s legal fees and possibly other damages.

I’ll also note that the story, as linked in the OP, has a glaring error. That story says, “As part of the settlement, Tripp gets a one-time payment of $595,000, a retroactive promotion and retroactive pay at a higher salary level for 1998, 1999 and 2000.” This is factually incorrect. The settlement agreement is very explicit on the subject of retroactive pay. It says in paragraph 2, “This settlement does not provide for retroactive pay based on these step increases.”

30

That is standard settlement language, UncleBeer. If I negligently step on your toe and pay you $1 to settle your claim against me, the settlement agreement would contain virtually identical language.

No, this is emphatically not the same DoJ that allegedly mistreated Ms. Tripp. This is now the Bush/Ashcroft DoJ, not the Clinton/Reno DoJ.

31

I think before we can say conclusively that this is not the same DoJ minty, we need to find out: a) who the DoJ attorneys are that worked on the Tripp case, b) who appointed them and when, c) who approved the settlement, and d) how that person got there. There are civilian personnel that, although hired or appointed by one administration, maintain their positions through subsequent administrations.

You’re making a whole lot of assumptions that are, at this point, unwarranted.

I realize that fully, minty, having been named a defendant more than once myself. My point is, and always has been, that the $595,000 wasn’t agreed to merely to settle the Privacy Act breach. It’s compensation for other, and in my opinion far more significant, damages. The cash, as, as I have maintained all along, is intended to settle all of Tripps claims of damage, including the retaliation by the DoJ in Ms. Tripps circumstances of employment at the DoJ. Also, as I have stated, though Tripp is being given other compensation, the aspects of it cannot be parceled out as simply as everyone appears to be trying to do.

32

Oh god, it’s the patented UncleBeer Burden of Proof: Everyone else must conclusively establish all unknowable facts before they are entitled to any opinion contrary to UncleBeer’s.

Bollocks.

33

What are you talking about, minty? There isn’t a single unknowable fact requested in any of my statements. Indeed, I didn’t ask anyone specifically to establish anything - I said *we. That’s a collective pronoun which includes the speaker. I’ve made some attempts to identify the parties myself. I’m not asking anyone conclusively establish anything I’m not also seeking myself. I am asking people to read the settlement agreement. It explicitly contradicts what many are maintaining to be truth.

Once again, since I can’t make myself understood. The $595,000 settlement figure has been represented by the people in this thread and by the authors of the citations provided by the people in this thread to be compensation solely for the DoJ breach of the Privacy Act. My contention is that that is not true. The lump sum payment figure was agreed to by the concerned parties as compensation for a variety of damages, not only the breach of privacy.

None of this is a matter of opinion. It’s established fact. You can read it yourself in the settlement agreement. So your claims about opinions contrary to mine requiring an unmeetable burden of proof are misplaced with regard to the charges from which the settlement stem. Where opinion does matter, however, mine isn’t really all that contrary to yours. I, too, think the payout is, as Bricker said “off by an order of magnitude.”

I’m not sure why you’re copping such an attitude here. I’ve been nothing but polite and even conciliatory towards you in this thread. I can only conclude that you’re being a dick for the sake of being a dick. In which case, you can take that dick and go fuck yourself with it.

34

I’m being snotty because you’re engaging in unfounded hair-splitting and other assorted nonsense. Demanding the precise identities of the DoJ lawyers involved, both in the settlement and the alleged abuse of Ms. Tripp? Claiming that there’s no difference between the Clinton/Reno DoJ and the Bush/Ashcroft DoJ?

Bollocks, I say.

35

Well crap. I have found that I have made a large mistake way back there. I’ve used the DoJ, which has nothing to do with any of my arguments, a few times where I actually meant the DoD. And I’ve perpetuated that mistake through several additional posts. My apologies for any confusion I may have caused. However, I don’t think it changes my argument substantially, as it should be obvious that Tripp wasn’t working at the DoJ while employed at the DoD.

Anyway, you’re full of shit minty. Unfounded hair-splitting? Bullshit. I think it’s extremely central to the issue that the persons responsible for negotiating and approving this agreement are identified. You’re the guy who claimed that this award was made out of some kinda of departmental sympathy for Tripp. Yet the guys who negotiated the award on behalf of the gov’t work for the same department that at one time allegedly engaged in tactics detrimental to Tripp’s career in that department. (In fact, she was fired from that department because she refused to resign during the change of administrations. If such sympathy existed for Tripp within this department then why’d they get rid of her?) If there’s such a sea change in the attitudes of this department, it can only be because the attitudes of the individuals involved are holding sway. In which case it’s extremely important to identify them and explore their motivations if your case is to have any merit, which I actually fucking agreed it might. But you’d indict without facts; I prefer to see them. Especially when they should be easily obtainable.

You’re free, of course, to be a snotty bastard if you wish. It’s not entirely out of character for you. Especially when you’re refusing to address the major point of the argument and hauling out your favorite strawman. I guess now that Halloween is over and you don’t need him for the holiday decorations, you’re gonna put him back to use here.

Do whatever you wish. I’m through here. I’ve proved the only point I’ve tried to make with actual documents and uncontestable facts. Your claim that the lump sum was given to Tripp outta some department-wide sympathy is still open. It’s testable, but you don’t seem to have any interest in an objective test.

36

So you think it doesn’t matter that it’s Rumsfeld’s DoD under Bush and not Cohen’s DoD under Clinton? Your argument is still crap. No wonder you’re bailing out.

37

I am deeply, deeply saddened that our profanity-spewing colleague has departed the premises. Where, oh where will I ever obtain such wonderful anatomical advice in his absence?

Ah well, on to the substance, such as it is:

Negotiating? Beats me. Ultimate approval, however, most certainly came from a guy named Ashcroft. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? It defies belief to suggest that the highest levels of the department would have no responsibility for or awareness of so large a settlement in such a politically-charged case.

Hold on, didn’t you just admit you were mixing up the DoJ and the DoD? Query: Which entity did Tripp work for, and which defends the government in lawsuits filed against it, including the negotiation of settlements thereto? Hint: They are not the same.

You prefer to ignore the clear implication of the known facts and instead insist on other hypotheses that depend on impossible data.

What the heck do you want, Beer? The voter registration cards of the attorneys who negotiated the payoff, I mean, settlement? A Vulcan mind-meld to tell us their most secret thoughts? Their signed confessions that they were thrilled to keep adding zeros to the check because it was payable to such a fine, upstanding hero of the republic? And if whatever you want is so simple to demonstrate, why don’t you just go ahead and prove it instead of complaining that I haven’t done my homework?