Whistle-blower Tripp begs for money and a job

NEW YORK - Linda Tripp, the former Pentagon official whose betrayal of Monica Lewinsky blew the lid off former President Bill Clinton's intern-sex scandal, is appealing to Republicans to send her money and help her to get a job with President George W. Bush.

"I now find myself with no money for rent, transportation, food, heat and utilities," she wrote to so-called Republican allies.

Tripp was fired from her job on Clinton's last day in office. She has been unemployed since then. The letter alleges that a possible Government post in Germany was sabotaged when her foes publicised it in a military newspaper. "I felt there was literally no place on earth where I could go to escape the long arm of the vicious, vindictive Clinton machine."

Tripp asks for donations of between $US20 ($45) and $US1000. She also asks them to sign a form letter urging the President to give her a "meaningful position" in his Administration.

"I never thought I would have to write and ask you for money while Bill Clinton gets $US100,000 to make a speech," she writes. She adds that friends had urged her to cash in on her notoriety with a book but she had not done so.

- INDEPENDENT