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Prosecutor on the Clinton Whitewater probe, Ken Starr, has died at 76
By Deepa Shivaram
Published September 14, 2022 02:13 AM
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Kenneth Starr has died. The conservative lawyer was known best as the independent counsel who investigated then-President Bill Clinton. He was 76 years old. According to a statement from his family, he died Tuesday of complications following surgery. NPR's Deepa Shivaram reminds us of Starr's long public career.
DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: At just 37 years of age, Ken Starr made history as the youngest person to serve on the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals. A conservative from San Antonio, Starr was nominated by then-President Ronald Reagan. He went on to serve as solicitor general in the George H.W. Bush administration and argued 25 cases before the Supreme Court. But he's best known for leading an investigation into the real estate dealings of Bill and Hillary Clinton. The investigation would come to be known as Whitewater.
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KEN STARR: The investigation continues to be interested in the facts, the truth. We want all the facts. We want all the truth. That is what the investigation is about.
SHIVARAM: His role as independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation led him to look into President Clinton's relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: CNN has confirmed that Whitewater counsel Kenneth Starr has been granted permission to expand his investigation. He will be…
SHIVARAM: After five years of investigations, Starr issued a report that in part led to the House of Representatives impeaching President Clinton, though he was later acquitted by the Senate. More recently, Starr was president of Baylor University from 2010 to 2016, but he was forced out as university president after being accused of failing to appropriately investigate sexual assault claims. In 2020, Starr became a member of former President Donald Trump's defense team during his first impeachment trial. Starr claimed that impeachment was being used too often.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
STARR: Significantly, in this particular juncture in America's history, the Senate is being called to sit as the high court of impeachment all too frequently. Indeed, we are living in what I think can aptly be described as the age of impeachment.
SHIVARAM: Starr was a frequent commentator on Fox News, where he was a staunch defender of President Trump.
Deepa Shivaram, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
https://www.kpcc.org/2022-09-14/prosecutor-on-the-clinton-whitewater-probe-ken-starr-has-died-at-76
Ken Starr
Independent counsel
Main article: Whitewater controversy
Pic: Starr with Brett Kavanaugh and Alex Azar in the 1990s
In August 1994, pursuant to the newly reauthorized Ethics in Government Act (28 U.S.C. § 593(b)), Starr was appointed by a special three-judge division of the D.C. Circuit to continue the Whitewater investigation.[27] He replaced Robert B. Fiske, a moderate Republican who had been appointed by attorney general Janet Reno.[28]
Investigation of the death of Vince Foster
On October 10, 1997, Starr's report on the death of deputy White House counsel Vince Foster, drafted largely by Starr's deputy Brett Kavanaugh, was released to the public by the Special Division. The complete report is 137 pages long and includes an appendix added to the Report by the Special Division over Starr's objection.[32] The report agrees with the findings of previous independent counsel Robert B. Fiske that Foster committed suicide at Fort Marcy Park, in Virginia, and that his suicide was caused primarily by undiagnosed and untreated depression. …
Expansion of the investigation
The law conferred broad investigative powers on Starr and the other independent counsels named to investigate the administration, including the right to subpoena nearly anyone who might have information relevant to the particular investigation.[36] Starr would later receive authority to conduct additional investigations, including the firing of White House Travel Office personnel, potential political abuse of confidential FBI files, Madison Guaranty, Rose Law Firm, Paula Jones lawsuit and, most notoriously, possible perjury and obstruction of justice to cover up President Clinton's sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.[37] … With the investigation of Clinton's possible adultery, critics of Starr believed that he had crossed a line and was acting more as a political hit man than as a prosecutor. [36][38]
Clinton–Lewinsky scandal, Paula Jones lawsuit
In his deposition for the Paula Jones lawsuit, Clinton denied having "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky.[39] On the basis of the evidence provided by Monica Lewinsky, a blue dress stained with Clinton's semen, Ken Starr concluded that this sworn testimony was false and perjurious.[39][40] …
Starr's investigation eventually led to the impeachment of President Clinton, with whom Starr shared Time's Man of the Year designation for 1998.[37] …
Blackwater Security Consulting v. Nordan (No. 06-857)
Starr represented Blackwater in a case involving the deaths of four unarmed civilians killed by Blackwater contractors in Fallujah, Iraq, in March 2004.[61]
Defense of Jeffrey Epstein
In 2007, Starr joined the legal team defending Palm Beach billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of the statutory rape of numerous underage high school students.[66] Epstein would later plea bargain to plead guilty to several charges of soliciting and trafficking of underage girls, serve 13 months on work release in a private wing of the Palm Beach jail, and register as a sex offender.[67] Starr said he was "in the room" when then-US attorney Alex Acosta made the deal that yielded the plea bargain for Epstein and later described Acosta as "a person of complete integrity," adding that "everyone was satisfied" with the agreement.[68]
Donald Trump impeachment trial
On January 16, 2020, Starr was announced as a member of then-President Donald Trump's legal team for his Senate impeachment trial.[69] He argued before the Senate on Trump's behalf on January 27, 2020.[70] Slate journalist Jeremy Stahl pointed out that as he was urging the Senate not to remove Trump as president, Starr contradicted various arguments he used in 1998 to justify Clinton's impeachment.[70] In defending Trump, Starr also claimed he was wrong to have called for impeachment against Clinton for abuse of executive privilege and efforts to obstruct Congress and also stated that the House Judiciary Committee was right in 1998 to have rejected one of the planks for impeachment he had advocated for. [70] He also invoked a 1999 Hofstra Law Review article by Yale law professor Akhil Amar, who argued that the Clinton impeachment proved just how impeachment and removal causes "grave disruption" to a national election. [70] …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Starr
Ken Starr
Biography
(1946–2022)
An exerpt:
Baylor University Scandal
In a unanimous vote, Starr was elected by the Baylor University Board of Regents to become its 14th President in 2010. In 2013, Starr was also elected as Chancellor. In the short time he was in office, multiple sexual assault allegations were made by female students, many of which accused football players. However, Baylor University did not bring charges against the accused. Instead, criminal court proceedings revealed that former Baylor linebacker Tevin Elliot was guilty of two counts of sexual assault of a Baylor student (decided in 2014) and that former Baylor defensive end Sam Ukwuachu was guilty of raping a student (decided in 2015, overturned and granted a new trial in 2017). During Ukwuachu’s trial, it was revealed that Baylor knew about the rape allegations against Ukwuachu but had made no efforts to punish him. A short time later, in May 2016 an independent investigation released a report revealing that head football coach Art Briles and others at the University were aware of multiple rapes of Baylor students committed by football players. Specifically, the report indicated:
"Baylor failed to take appropriate action to respond to reports of sexual assault and dating violence reportedly committed by football players. The choices made by football staff and athletics leadership, in some instances, posed a risk to campus safety and the integrity of the University.''' In certain instances, including reports of a sexual assault by multiple football players, athletics and football personnel affirmatively chose not to report sexual violence and dating violence to an appropriate administrator outside of athletics. In those instances, football coaches or staff met directly with a complainant and/or a parent of a complainant and did not report the misconduct."
Shortly thereafter, Starr was ousted from his position as President of Baylor University and later resigned as Chancellor.
https://www.biography.com/law-figure/ken-starr