Getty Linda Tripp's husband Dieter Rausch is from Germany
Linda Tripp, whose tapes of her conversations with her former friend Monica Lewinsky helped set the stage for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, was married to Dieter Rausch, a German man with whom she ran a Christmas store.
Tripp, 70, is dead after a battle with pancreatic cancer, Daily Mail is reporting.
The official cause of death has not yet been released. However, Daily Mail is now reporting that Linda Tripp died on April 8, 2020 after finding out she had pancreatic cancer less than a week ago when she began suffering from stomach pains.
Tripp’s daughter told TMZ that Tripp did not have coronavirus (COVID-19). In 2009, Time Magazine reported that Tripp was a breast cancer survivor.
Tripp and Rausch had a long love story that dated back to their childhoods.
#throwbackthursday Dieter Rausch at the Christmas Sleigh in Middleburg, Virginia http://t.co/vHZpLnWxcA http://t.co/QPnYK50hFc
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Tripp & Her Husband Ran a Virginia Store Selling German Christmas Ornaments
Tripp and Dieter Rausch were trying to sell their $3 million farm when she gave a 2015 Daily Mail interview. According to Daily Mail, Tripp and her husband ran a store called “The Christmas Sleigh, in Middleburg,” and she was a grandmother of seven.
“Dieter Rausch, the dapper gentleman behind The Christmas Sleigh shop in the heart of Middleburg, will capture a piece of your heart with his kind smile and warm welcome. Spend a few minutes in conversation with him, and you can easily see why he is a beloved member of our community,” Middleburg Life wrote.
According to its website, The Christmas Sleigh sells German Christmas ornaments. The website labels the store “America’s best 100% authentic German shop” and says it’s been open for 17 years. The store also sells handmade Austrian clothing.
“The Christmas Sleigh carries a wide variety of high quality and hand made European items. Many of our products are not as yet on our web site and we add to our inventory virtually every day. Our frequent buying trips to Germany, Austria and Italy during the year help ensure that we can usually locate whatever it is you are looking for as long as it is still being made!” the website reads.
According to Inside Nova, Rausch “prides himself in only selecting the finest German goods,” and the store carries German items and antiques too. He is involved in making the decorations and created ornaments for the local Christmas parade. He also made fox nutcrackers.
2. Tripp’s Husband & Daughter Were at Her Side When She Died
GettyLinda Tripp (R) waits to make a statement to reporters beside her daughter Allison (L) and son Ryan (C) in front of the Federal Courthouse 29 July in Washington, DC, after her eighth and final day of testimony before a federal grand jury.
Tripp’s husband and daughter were at her side in the hospital when she died, according to Daily Mail.
Earlier in the day, TMZ reported that Tripp was near death, quoting her daughter as saying on Facebook: “My mommy is leaving this earth. I don’t know myself if I can survive this heartache.” Allison Tripp Foley asked for prayers for “a painless process for the strongest woman I will ever know in my entire lifetime.”
For her part, Lewinsky wrote 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.”
At the time of the Clinton scandal, Linda Tripp was a civil servant working for the Pentagon. Since the scandal, Tripp stayed largely out of the public eye.
3. Reviews Were Mixed on the Couple’s Store; Tripp’s Husband, Who Used to Be an Architect, Often Wore Authentic German Clothing
Getty(Getty)
In 2014, Boston.com reported that Tripp was “in Middleburg, Virginia selling authentic German trinkets out of a Christmas shop she runs with her German husband” but noted that some Yelp reviewers were leaving negative comments. The reviews on Yelp were mixed. “I love this store! How could you not?! Everything is beautifully displayed. I wish more stores were as tasteful and magical,” read one.
But another reviewer wrote, “WAY overpriced for stuff available everywhere & online. I found much of it tacky, too.”
An article in Inside Nova described Tripp’s husband Dieter Rausch as “quietly softspoken” and described him as “typically dressed in traditional German attire of lederhosen and a felt cap.” The 2015 article said that Rausch had lived in Virginia for 14 years at that point and married Tripp in 2003 after knowing her for years.
Middleburg Life reported that Rausch is from a small town called Unterliederbach near Frankfurt and spent 30 years as an architect.
4. Rausch Was Tripp’s ‘First Kiss’
Time magazine reports that Dieter Rausch was “a childhood boyfriend who had been Tripp’s first kiss at age 14” and says she is a breast cancer survivor. According to Biography.com, Tripp’s mother, Inge, was German. She was previously married to a military man named Bruce Tripp, with whom she had children Ryan and Allison.
According to Middleburg Life, Dieter met Linda when he was 9 years old and she was visiting his neighbor. He built her a “decorated wooden box” to hold the letters she wrote him. They met again in 2000 when she asked him to visit.
Tripp did receive some money as a result of the scandal. “In 2003, she settled with the Department of Defense for $595,000 in a civil suit in which Tripp charged the Pentagon had violated her privacy by releasing personal information to the media,” Time Magazine reported. Biography.com reported that Tripp also received “a retroactive promotion, retroactive pay at the highest salary for 1998, 1999, and 2000, and a pension.”
5. Tripp Claimed She Was a Victim of a ‘High-Tech Lynching’
Linda Tripp, confidant of former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, leaves her Columbia, MD home to travel to the US District Courthouse 02 July in Washington, DC.
Tripp hadn’t been very high-profile over the years. In fact, when she spoke out on the saga in July 2018, it was, according to The Washington Post, “her first public address in nearly two decades.” She was speaking at an event for National Whistleblower Day on Capitol Hill.
She expressed only having a single regret, according to The Post: “Not having the guts to do it sooner.”
“It was always about right and wrong, never left and right,” Tripp said in the talk, The Post reported. “It was about exposing perjury and the obstruction of justice. It was never about politics.” She added that she now knew what “a real high-tech lynching feels like.”
According to The Post, Tripp lamented that it was “virtually impossible to get your good name back” and said “My duty, my oath, was to the office of presidency, not to the sitting incumbent, and I was true to that oath.”
Although she hasn’t given many public speeches, Linda Tripp gave a few selective interviews in which she lashed out at Hillary Clinton.