Kenneth Winston Starr, a former US solicitor general who rose to international prominence in the 1990s as the independent Counsel who relentlessly probed President Bill Clinton through a succession of political scandals, has died. He was 76.
According to his family, Starr died as a result of surgical complications.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of our dear and loving Father and Grandfather, whom we admired for his prodigious work ethic, but who always put his family first. The love, energy, endearing sense of humour, and fun-loving interest Dad exhibited to us was extraordinary, and we cherish the many wonderful memories we could experience with him,” Starr’s son, Randall, said in the statement on behalf of his children.
Starr, who served as President of Baylor University from 2010 to 2016, was a part of former President Donald Trump’s defence team during Trump’s first impeachment. “Judge Starr was a committed public servant and enthusiastic advocate of religious freedom, which permits faith-based schools like Baylor to thrive,” said Baylor President Linda Livingstone in a statement Tuesday.
Starr, a conservative Republican, began his investigations against Clinton in 1994, when he was appointed independent Counsel to investigate the then-President and Hillary Clinton’s participation in the Whitewater real estate controversy by a federal appeals panel.
The Clintons were not convicted in that case, but Starr’s probe into the Clintons’ activities subsequently grew to include Paula Jones’ sexual harassment charges. That inquiry led to Starr directing the investigation into the President’s romance with Monica Lewinsky.
Clinton was impeached due to the Lewinsky scandal on two counts of lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice, but he was acquitted by the Senate in February 1999 and served out the remainder of his term.
For more than a year, the controversy consumed Washington and most of the news media, and both Starr and Clinton were chosen Time’s Men of the Year in 1998. Starr’s probe was viewed as a reflection of an era of more acrimonious politics combined with a tabloid-like curiosity in politicians’ personal lives. Starr’s particular report to Congress on the affair was chastised for including several gruesome details about Clinton and Lewinsky’s sexual interaction.
Starr denied any political motivation for his pursuit of Clinton.
“I was assigned to do a job by the attorney general, and that was to find out whether crimes were committed in this (Paula Jones) sexual harassment lawsuit,” Starr said. “The whole idea of equal justice under law means you’ve got to play by the rules. It has nothing to do with the underlying subject matter. You just tell the truth.”
He stepped down from his independent counsel position in October 1999, citing the “intense politicization of the independent counsel process.”
Starr is survived by his wife, Alice, and three children, whom he married in 1970.
