Linda Tripp is giving several interviews over the next few days.

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WASHINGTON (AP) —Linda Tripp, whose tape recordings triggered the Monica Lewinsky scandal, says she considered it her "patriotic duty" to expose a relationship in which President Clinton "abused, used, discarded" the former White House intern.

People think the relationship was "consensual and that I inserted myself somehow" but "it was not," Mrs. Tripp said in an interview aired today on NBC's "Today" show.

"The public has no clue ... absolutely no idea what Monica endured ... the histrionics, the hysteria, the throwing of lamps, the damage to herself" and Clinton "emotionally abused Monica," Mrs. Tripp asserted. "She threatened suicide on more than one occasion."

Mrs. Tripp said she felt Ms. Lewinsky was passing along "threats" from President Clinton that Mrs. Tripp should lie in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit.

"There were threats," said Mrs. Tripp. "Did I take them seriously? Absolutely. Threats to my life. Threats to the lives of my children. Monica made those threats and passed them along to me, I believed from the president. I believed I was in jeopardy. Be a team player, or else." She said the message she got was that if she didn't protect the president by lying, "You will lose your job and worse."

Regarding alleged threats, White House spokesman Jim Kennedy said "any such bizarre suggestion is ludicrous."

Mrs. Tripp denied the role Clinton supporters have attributed to her as a provocateur who actively tried to foment the scandal. She said she didn't start taking steps to expose the relationship "until I was asked to commit a crime" by lying in the Jones case.

Pressed about her contact with Mrs. Jones' lawyers, Mrs. Tripp said "they approached me" but she did not deny that she brought up Ms. Lewinsky's name.

"Are you asking me did I want this behavior exposed? Absolutely," said Mrs. Tripp.

She said lying in Mrs. Jones' lawsuit in order to protect the president was "not an option for me."

"It was worth it to me to do what I considered to be my patriotic duty" and "yes, I would do it all again," Mrs. Tripp said.

Mrs. Tripp has emerged as one of the most unpopular figures in the presidential scandal. She turned over the tapes to prosecutor Kenneth Starr but refuses to say in public whether she made them. She remains under investigation by Maryland authorities who want to know whether she violated the state's wiretapping law.

Save for her grand jury appearances and the release of her tape-recorded phone calls, Mrs. Tripp has seldom been heard from told Americans she had been misunderstood and mischaracterized. "I'm you," she declared then.

A former White House worker employed by the Pentagon but who has worked from home since the scandal erupted, Mrs. Tripp insisted that she would want someone to expose an improper relationship if it involved her daughter, just as she did for Ms. Lewinsky.

"I would thank them," Mrs. Tripp said. "If my daughter found herself in a situation such as this where she was being abused, used, discarded, I would hope someone would come in and help her."

"I take exception to the fact that I brought this all about," Mrs. Tripp declared, placing the blame squarely on Clinton. "These were choices made by the president of the United States," she said.

— Pete Yost

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