Clinton Sex Scandal Whistleblower Linda Tripp Dies at Age 70: Reports

Linda Tripp, the former U.S. civil servant whose secretly taped telephone conversations with a former White House intern documented the sex scandal that led to then-President 👤Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment, died on Wednesday at age 70.

Her death was confirmed to the Washington Post by her son, Ryan Tripp, and to the New York Post by her son-in-law, Thomas Foley, who said Tripp’s unspecified illness was unrelated to the coronavirus.

The Daily Mail in Britain cited a longtime close friend, Diane Spreadbury, as saying Tripp succumbed to a brief battle with pancreatic cancer.

Tripp became forever linked with the sex scandal that nearly brought down Clinton’s presidency by way of her whistleblower role in exposing the extramarital affair he had with Tripp’s acquaintance, 👤Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern.

Tripp was a secretary in the White House counsel’s office in the early years of Clinton’s presidency before she was transferred to the Pentagon’s public affairs office and befriended Lewinsky, 24 years her junior.

As the two became close and Lewinsky revealed her past sexual relationship with Clinton, Tripp began clandestinely recording their private telephone conversations in which Lewinsky documented her affair with the president in graphic detail.

Tripp ultimately turned over hours of those tapes to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, who was investigating potential wrongdoing by Clinton, the former Arkansas governor, stemming from the failed Whitewater real estate venture in the Ozarks. Tripp was granted immunity from illegal wiretapping charges in exchange for the recordings.

On the basis of the tapes, Starr obtained permission to expand his probe into the Clinton-Lewinsky affair.