NEW YORK—Lucianne Goldberg, a literary agent and key figure in the 1998 impeachment of President Bill Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewinsky, has died at the age of 87.
Goldberg’s son, political commentator and author Jonah Goldberg, posted Thursday on Twitter that his mother died Wednesday at her home. He did not give a cause of death.
Lucianne Goldberg, a longtime conservative activist, gained national prominence for advising her friend Linda Tripp to secretly tape Tripp’s conversations with Lewinsky, a former White House intern who had been involved in a sexual relationship with Clinton.
Tripp’s 20 hours of tapes of her conversations with Lewinsky were crucial to special prosecutor Kenneth Starr’s investigation of Clinton over his affair with Lewinsky. Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives on Dec. 19, 1998, but he was acquitted by the Senate.
Goldberg met Tripp while working on a proposal for a book on the death of Vince Foster, a Clinton aide. It was Goldberg who told her friend the recordings would be legal—they weren’t—and then encouraged her to break Lewinsky’s trust and give them to Starr.
Goldberg set up her literary agency to promote books others would have shunned. She also worked as a ghostwriter for celebrities.
Goldberg was born Lucianne Steinberger in Boston. Her first marriage, to William Cummings, ended in divorce. Her second husband, newspaper executive Sidney Goldberg, died in 2005.
Her survivors include Jonah Goldberg. Another son, Joshua Goldberg, died in 2011.
