Linda Tripp, one of the main protagonists of the "Lewinsky scandal" which resulted in a trial for the impeachment of former US President Bill Clinton, died on Wednesday, said his former lawyer. Me Joseph Murtha did not specify the causes of death of his former client but according to his relatives, quoted in the American media, Ms. Tripp, 70 years old, suffered from pancreatic cancer.
In 1996, while employed at the Pentagon, she became friends with a new colleague, Monica Lewinsky, a 22-year-old former White House intern. She had told him about her affair with the Democratic president. Unbeknownst to the young woman, Linda Tripp had recorded her secrets from 1997 onwards. She also convinced her to keep a blue dress soiled by the president's sperm.
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She then delivered the tapes and information about the dress to special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, who has been investigating Bill Clinton since 1994, initially on suspicion of corruption and then sexual harassment. The prosecutor, whose investigation was stalling, seized it to accuse the president of perjury, the latter having denied under oath to have had sexual intercourse with his intern.
This investigation had led the House of Representatives to send Bill Clinton to trial before the Senate. He had been acquitted in 1999. Ms. Tripp had declared to have acted by "patriotism" but had become in public opinion the symbol of the false friend, traitor. In 2018, she still defended her action in a podcast: "I made the deliberate choice to say that this behavior was unacceptable on the part of the leader of the free world" .
A few hours before the announcement of her death, Monica Lewinsky had tweeted: "No matter the past, I learned that Linda Tripp is seriously ill, I hope she will recover . "