Dubya In, Clinton Out

By Stephen M. Silverman

Thursday June 04, 1998 12:00 AM EDT

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Big doings in Washington this weekend. On Saturday, George Walker Bush was sworn in as the 43rd president of the United States. In his inaugural address that sought to unify the country, he asked a prosperous nation to "seek a common good beyond your comfort." Meanwhile, his predecessor, William Jefferson Clinton, generated a good deal of news copy on Friday, his final full day in office. As part of a deal with prosecutors in order to avert an indictment, Clinton admitted that he made false statements in the Monica Lewinsky case and agreed to his law Arkansas law license for five years and pay a $25,000 fine. Clinton also fired Department of Defense employee Linda Tripp from her $98,000-a-year job, said her lawyer. (Tripp made headlines over the past few years for secretly taping her friend, Monica Lewinsky, which led to Clinton's impeachment.) In fact, Tripp's job was a presidential appointment, and employees in such situations routinely resign on the chief executive's last day in office. Tripp didn't. She vows to sue, her attorney said. And, finally, Clinton granted pardons to more than 100 people on Saturday, including his half-brother Roger Clinton (who had pleaded guilty to distributing cocaine in Arkansas), heiress-turned-bank-robber Patricia Hearst and Susan H. McDougal, a one-time Clinton business partner who was jailed in the Whitewater scandal.