What if, instead of sending her recorded Lewinsky conversations to Ken Starr, Linda Tripp had instead secretly offered them for sale, say, to the Chinese government? Or to the Russians? Or even to agents of Saddam?
What kind of blackmail leverage would those tapes have provided to a foreign government in dealing with America on sensitive trade, security or military issues? One of the few things Clinton ever said that I believe is that he would have done anything to keep the Lewinsky affair secret. Given his demonstrated track record of selling out American interests for personal or political gain (there are many examples that I could cite), how far would he have gone in compromising America’s real interests in order to protect his own neck when threatened with blackmail?
Pretty far, I believe. Equally distressing is the prospect Clinton might, in fact, have succumbed to foreign black mail on other occasions in order to hide different sexual episodes that ultimately did not become public.
They would have not leverage whatsoever in foreign hands. If the Clintons and the Democrats didn't blink when the information was released in the American media, how would it be different if applied as blackmail? The Clintons would just tell the Chinese to "take it to the press".
Linda Tripp tells it or the Chinese tell the story. The affect is the same: Ho hum.