Linda Tripp, whose secretly recorded phone conversations with Monica Lewinsky led to Bill Clinton’s impeachment in the 1990s, has died. She was 70 years old. Tripp’s lawyer, Joseph Murtha, confirmed Tripp’s death to the Guardian earlier today, but did not provide further details. Thomas Foley, Tripp’s son-in-law, told the New York Post she had died from an illness that was not related to the coronavirus. He described her as “a special person and a fantastic grandparent who was devoted” to her family. Allison Tripp Foley, Tripp’s daughter, shared in a Facebook post late on Tuesday saying her 70-year-old mother was terminally ill, according to the New York Post. Her Facebook profile was later made private. “We were like sisters. I loved her. I’m heartbroken right now,” Diane Spreadbury, a close friend of Tripp’s, told the Daily Mail. “I’m glad for her that it was very peaceful. I’ve been told she died with a smile on her face,” she said. “We had discussed death many times and spoke of it together when she faced breast cancer 18 years ago. It wasn’t something that she was afraid of.” Tripp was a Pentagon employee in 1997 when she secretly taped conversations she had with Lewinsky, who confided in her about the affair with Clinton when she had been a White House intern. Tripp later turned over 22 hours of recordings to the special prosecutor Ken Starr, putting herself in the crosshairs of Clinton’s supporters. Tripp’s recordings blew the whistle on Clinton and nearly sunk his presidency – making him the second US president to be impeached. But the recordings also saw Lewinsky publicly attacked and shamed for years. After denying the affair in a sworn deposition, Clinton was impeached on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury. He was acquitted in the Senate after a 21-day trial. Murtha, Tripp’s attorney, later defended Tripp against charges that she had illegally recorded the conversations and the charges were eventually dismissed. Lewinsky recounted to Barbara Walters her feelings when she learned of the secret recordings: “Gutted and violated and betrayed. And scared,” she said. “I have never been so afraid in my entire life. I wanted to die.” Regardless, Lewinsky early Wednesday offered words of support for Tripp’s family, writing on Twitter: “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.” Speaking publicly in 2018, Tripp said she had just one regret: “Not having the guts to do it sooner. “It was always about right and wrong, never left and right,” Tripp said at an event marking National Whistleblower Day on Capitol Hill, according to the Washington Post. “It was about exposing perjury and the obstruction of justice. It was never about politics.” Talking to the Slate podcast Slow Burn in 2018, Tripp maintained that Clinton’s behavior was inexcusable for anyone, “let alone the leader of the free world in the Oval Office”. She said the scandal didn’t define her life, but she believed that if Clinton had faced stiffer penalties for his role in the scandal, the #MeToo movement that held powerful men to account would have come sooner. “I think #MeToo would have been history and we would have been so much further along with ensuring that none of this happened in the workplace, making it the exception rather than the rule,” Tripp said.