Independent Counsel Ken Starr, whose probe into a White House sex scandal enthralled the nation and led to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment for lying under oath and obstructing justice, passed away on Tuesday at a Houston hospital. He was 76.
He had been a patient at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center for the past 17 weeks, his wife, Alice Starr, said; she did not specify what he was being treated for, but she did say that he died from surgery complications.
For over a year, problems of sex, morality, accountability, and ideology were thrust to the center of American life because of Kenneth Starr’s inquiry into President Clinton’s romance with a former White House intern, Monica S. Lewinsky.
A Rorschach test for the post-Cold War age, he was hailed as a hero for standing up to what his supporters believed to be an obscene president who had despoiled the Oval Office, while his opponents saw him as a sex-obsessed Inspector Javert motivated by politics. His inquiry pushed the Constitution to its limits by leading to the first presidential impeachment in 130 years, leaving a mark on the legacy of both Bill Clinton and himself.
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When he denounced impeachment as a tool in partisan battles and took the other side. He told the Senate that “Impeachment is terrible” and compared it to war during the trial that ended in acquittal, just as Mr. Clinton’s impeachment trial had 21 years earlier. At the very least, the process of impeaching a president is a living hell.
No one understood this more than Mr. Starr, whose career in conservative law was derailed when he was thrust into the middle of a scandal involving the president, sexual innuendo, and secret tapes. Before becoming a lightning rod in the Clinton inquiry, Mr. Starr was a highly regarded appeals court judge and solicitor general.
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Who Is Kenneth Winston Starr?
American lawyer and judge Kenneth Winston Starr was born on July 21, 1946, and died on September 13, 2022. He oversaw the inquiry of Clinton administration officials involved in the Whitewater scandal from 1994 until 1998.
Starr was a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In the years spanning George H. W. Bush‘s presidency, he served on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals from 1983 to 1989 and then as Solicitor General of the United States from 1989 to 1993.
During Bill Clinton’s time as U.S. president, Starr’s time as independent counsel was the focus of the media. After Vince Foster, the deputy White House counsel, committed himself, Starr was brought in to look into Clinton’s Whitewater real estate dealings and the circumstances surrounding his death.
Later, the three-judge panel responsible for enforcing the Ethics in Government Act broadened the investigation to include Clinton’s alleged deception regarding his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Early Life
Starr was raised in Centerville, Texas, but he was born in Vernon to Vannie Maude (Trimble) and Willie D. Starr, a minister, and barber respectively in the Churches of Christ.
Starr was a popular, high-achieving student at San Antonio’s Sam Houston High School. In 1970, Starr wed Alice Mendell, a former Jew who had converted to Christianity; his classmates had voted him most likely to succeed. They raised a brood of three offspring.
Career in Law
Starr worked as a legal clerk for United States District Judge David W. Dyer after completing law school. From 1973 to 1974, he worked in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and from 1975 to 1977, he was a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger. Ultimately, the highest court in the land.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher was a law firm based in Los Angeles that hired Starr in 1977. (now Gibson Dunn). It was in 1981 that he became William French Smith’s counsel at the Department of Justice.
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U.S. District Court Judge and Solicitor General
The seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had been vacant since George MacKinnon’s retirement, and Reagan nominated him to fill it on September 13, 1983.
On the 20th of September, 1983, he was commissioned after being confirmed by the United States Senate. On May 26, 1989, his employment officially ended since he resigned.
During George H. W. Bush’s presidency, Starr served as solicitor general of the United States from 1989 until 1993.
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