Former prosecutor Kenneth Starr, Bill Clinton’s bête noire in the Lewinsky affair, has died
Steph Deschamps / September 14, 2022
In his memoirs, he said he regretted the fracture caused in the United States by his investigation, but assured that he had only followed the facts. Former prosecutor Kenneth Starr, who led the charge against Democratic President Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky affair, died Tuesday at 76, following surgery, his family announced.
Kenneth Starr gained worldwide notoriety in the late 1990s by investigating, as an independent prosecutor, Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. After having fiercely denied any sexual relationship, including under oath, the Democratic president was forced to acknowledge an inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky. The latter had been forced to collaborate with the investigation to avoid being charged. She had provided the prosecution team with a dress stained with semen belonging, according to the expert, to Bill clinton.
Starr’s pugnacity against the president was not enough to bring him down: Bill Clinton was acquitted by the Senate in 1999 after an impeachment vote by the Republican-majority House. Kenneth Starr, who has never hidden his conservative sympathies, had also participated in the defense of Donald Trump during his first impeachment trial in 2020.
On Tuesday, their leader Mitch McConnell said he was saddened by the death of his friend. Kenneth Starr was a brilliant lawyer, an impressive leader and a dedicated patriot, the senator added in a statement.
The impeachment trial had however caused unease in a large part of the American population, which had reproached Kenneth Starr for behaving as an inquisitor. My feelings towards Ken Starr are complicated, but the most important is the pain of his loved ones, tweeted Tuesday Monica Lewinsky who had accused him in the past of having chased and terrorized her.
After Bill Clinton’s acquittal, Kenneth Starr had worked as a lawyer, professor, university president and commentator on the conservative Fox News channel. In 2016, he was removed from his position as president of Baylor University, a large private Baptist university in Texas, for failing to take the necessary sanctions against athletes on the school’s American soccer team accused of sexual assault.
Responses