KATHMANDU: Linda Tripp, the former US civil servant who secretly taped telephone conversations with a former White House intern that led to then-President Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment, died on Wednesday. She was 70.

American daily Washington Post cited Linda’s son, Ryan Tripp, as confirming her death while her son-in-law, Thomas Foley, said Tripp’s unspecified illness was not related to the coronavirus.

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.

(With inputs from Agencies)