Linda Tripp, who secretly taped Monica Lewinsky talking about sex with Bill Clinton, dies aged 70

Linda Tripp, the Pentagon publicist whose secret recordings of Monica Lewinsky talking about sex with Bill Clinton led to the US President's impeachment in 1998, has died aged 70.

Her former lawyer, Joseph Murtha, confirmed the death, and US media cited family members saying she died after a short battle with pancreatic cancer.

Ms Tripp starting working in the White House under President George HW Bush before Mr Clinton took office.

She was later transferred to the Pentagon's public affairs office where she met Ms Lewinsky who was working as an intern. Despite their 24-year age difference, they became friends.

Ms Lewinsky confided in Ms Tripp that she had sexual encounters with Mr Clinton in the Oval Office and Ms Tripp later recorded their conversations without Ms Lewinsky knowing.

Ms Lewinsky made clear at the time that she felt deeply betrayed. After she completed her testimony about the affair, she was asked if she had any final comments. According to CNN, she said: “I hate Linda Tripp”.

But on Wednesday Ms Lewinsky tweeted a message of support for Ms Tripp after news emerged that she was severely ill.

"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."

Ms Tripp always insisted that she had revealed Ms Lewinsky’s private confession of a relationship with Mr Clinton out of "patriotic duty".

In the conversations, Ms Lewinsky said she and the president had had sex on numerous occasions and that she had saved a blue dress she wore during one that still had stains of Mr Clinton’s semen on it.

Ms Tripp then took the recordings to independent prosecutor Ken Starr, who used them to expand a separate investigation of the president.

Mr Clinton at first denied the relationship, declaring from the White House: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."

But Ms Tripp’s recordings and the blue dress she urged Ms Lewinsky to save as an "insurance policy" blew the case open.

In 1998, Mr Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives and placed on trial in the Senate for lying and obstruction of justice. He was acquitted.

The affair made Ms Tripp a villain to Democrats and supporters of the president, but she was a minor hero to Republicans.

Ms Tripp said in a 1999 interview, on the day of Mr Clinton’s acquittal, that she had no regrets despite having received numerous threats.

"The public has no clue... absolutely no idea what Monica endured," she told NBC. "It was worth it to me to do what I considered to be my patriotic duty."

She was later forced from her job, in which she was a political appointee, when Mr Clinton left office in January 2001.

After that she moved to Middleburg, Virginia where she operated a Christmas store, The Christmas Sleigh, with her second husband Dieter Rausch.