KEY POINTS

  • Linda Tripp died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 70
  • She recorded her conversations with Monica Lewinsky, who had an affair with Bill Clinton
  • Her recordings were used to file the impeachment complaint against Clinton

Linda Tripp, the key figure and whistleblower in the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton in the '90s, died Wednesday, April 8, at the age of 70 years.

Contrary to earlier reports, Tripp didn't have coronavirus though she was admitted to the ICU. Her daughter, Allison Tripp Foley, revealed on Facebook that Tripp has been seriously ill with pancreatic cancer and was on her deathbed Tuesday.

“My mommy is leaving this earth. I don’t know myself if I can survive this heartache. Please pray for a painless process for the strongest woman I will ever know in my entire lifetime,” Foley wrote on Facebook before turning her profile private.

Foley's husband, Thomas, confirmed his mother-in-law's death. She passed away Wednesday afternoon.

Tripp is also survived by her husband, Dieter Rausch, and son Ryan. She had seven grandchildren.

In 1997, Tripp recorded her conversations with a 22-year-old Monica Lewinsky, then a White House intern, over the latter's affair with the president. It was also Tripp who told Special Prosecutor Ken Starr that Lewinsky kept a blue dress that had evidence of her affair with the 42nd President of the United States.

Bill_Clinton_and_Monica_Lewinsky_on_February_28,_1997_A3e06420664168d9466c84c3e31ccc2f
Monica Lewinsky was a White House intern under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. William J. Clinton Presidential Library/Wikimedia Commons

Tripp's recording was vital to the investigations that led to Clinton's impeachment trial a few years later. The trial failed to oust the president but the stigma and humiliation of the Clinton-Lewinsky sex scandal have remained.

Tripp worked at the Pentagon when she developed a good relationship with Lewinsky. Several years after the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, Tripp said in an interview with The Washington Post that she didn't like the "whistleblower" label. She said she did not record her conversations with Lewinsky to hurt her friend.

“It was always about right and wrong, never left and right,” Tripp said. “It was about exposing perjury and the obstruction of justice. It was never about politics.”

On Twitter, Lewinsky posted her memorial for Tripp despite their broken friendship.

"No matter the past, upon hearing that Linda Tripp is very seriously ill, I hope for her recovery. I can’t imagine how difficult this is for her family," Lewinsky wrote.

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