As the first episode of “Impeachment” covered in its September premiere, Linda Tripp’s career as a bureaucrat was already substantial by the time President Bill Clinton was sworn into office in 1993. Tripp, a staunch Republican, was open about her antipathy towards both Clinton and future secretary of state (then first lady) Hillary Clinton over qualities in the former she saw as “crass and immoral,” per The Washington Post.
As “Impeachment” displayed in its rendering of Tripp, this was exacerbated by Tripp’s anxieties over her job security. In 1990, Tripp, who came into her career nearly two decades earlier as a secretary in the military — a post which matched well with her husband, a career officer — found herself working as a secretary in the White House under the George H.W. Bush administration, which the Post stated was a career highlight. A year after Clinton was appointed, Tripp was transferred to an office at the Pentagon, which Tripp saw as an affront, despite the sizable raise and higher rank the position entailed. The promotion came after the suicide of Vincent Foster, a deputy White House counsel, who Tripp directly reported to.