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Then & Now: Linda Tripp
 Then: Linda Tripp's recordings of Monica Lewinsky made her a key figure in the Clinton investigation. SPECIAL REPORTYOUR E-MAIL ALERTS(CNN) -- Linda Tripp found herself at the center of a political firestorm in 1998 when her taped conversations with White House intern Monica Lewinsky became part of President Clinton's impeachment. Tripp said she had no choice but to disclose information about Lewinsky's affair with Clinton, a decision that helped trigger his impeachment on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. He was later found not guilty in the Senate. "Given the set of circumstances at the time, I made the best choices that I could, at the time. However, do I regret the fact that the nation was put through an incredibly horrible period in our nation's history? Yes," she says in a recent interview with CNN. "Do I believe that could have been avoided? I do." Today, Tripp, 55, lives on a farm in Middleburg, Virginia, and has remarried, this time to her childhood sweetheart. She is retired from a 22-year federal government career. She also has survived a bout with breast cancer, and says that now she is "feeling great." Tripp came to the White House during the term of the first President Bush but was retained as an administrative secretary working in the counsel's office when Clinton took office in 1993. She moved to the Pentagon in August 1994, where she later became friends with Lewinsky who also worked at the Pentagon. "Monica made choices, the president made choices, and I was forced to make choices," she says. But Tripp's choices turned her into a political pariah and made her ripe for scathing parody. In February 1998, she became a national punch line when TV's "Saturday Night Live" aired a skit in which actor John Goodman portrayed Tripp as a backstabbing snitch. The national attention took Tripp and her family by surprise. "I was hurt that I was being defined by a package as opposed to who I was and what my motivation was," she said. "The painful part of ... being defined as this horribly ugly, nasty, mean-spirited person was that ... my children were exposed to it. And that's their mom out there." The media glare spurred Tripp to remove all of the televisions from her house for five years. She also decided to have plastic surgery. "I was so shattered for my children. Kids are so sensitive about their parents anyway, and my kids always thought I was pretty. And they were so completely shattered by the John Goodman and the horrible press. And I just felt so badly for them. I just wanted to fix it," she told CNN's Larry King in 2001. Despite all of the negative press and the chilling effect she says her actions had on her career as a government employee, Tripp says, given the chance, she would make the same decisions again. "It's so easy to say [Clinton's impeachment] was all about sex and it was private and mind your own business. Had that been the case ... I would most certainly have stayed quiet. When it involved what I refer to as subornation of perjury and obstruction of justice -- that involved me. My decision to bring that behavior to light was one I would do again," she says. "Understand, it would have made no difference to me if it had been George Bush sitting in that Oval Office. That it was about ... what I perceived to be subornation of perjury, obstruction of justice. That this was not about sex," she says. Tripp says she doesn't hate Bill Clinton, though she acknowledges he could have made better choices. "He could have been completely honest. I think he could have done it in a way that would have saved us all an enormous amount of heartache." As for her relationship with Monica Lewinsky, Tripp says the two have not spoken since 1998. "I know I'll be a footnote to history, and I've learned to live with that," Tripp says. "But I think the public probably needs to know that Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp are nothing but footnotes; we're not the story." 
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