Linda Tripp, best known for her involvement in the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal that resulted in President Clinton’s impeachment, has died at age 70, just one week after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, according to the Daily Mail.
On March 7, Tripp’s daughter posted a message to Facebook indicating that her mother was seriously ill:
“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.”
Tripp, who worked at the White House under President George H.W. Bush and was kept on by the Clintons before being transferred to the Pentagon, became a confidant of colleague Monica Lewinsky, then 22 and also newly transferred from the White House, who detailed her affair with President Clinton unaware that Tripp was recording their phone conversations. In 1998, Tripp shared the recordings with Kenneth Starr, the special counsel investigating the Clintons’ involvement in the Whitewater real estate scandal. Tripp’s tapes, along with wiretapped conversations between herself and Lewinsky, would lead to Clinton’s eventual impeachment by the House of Representatives, later overturned by the Senate. Despite their history, Lewinsky tweeted her best wishes for Tripp and her family.
Though family says there will not be a funeral due to covid-19 restrictions, the Daily Mail reports that Tripp’s husband and daughter were at her bedside in the ICU at the time of her death.