Ken Starr, the lawyer responsible for Clinton’s impeachment, dies at 76

Kenneth Starr, the lawyer who relentlessly pursued Bill Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewinsky, has died at the age of 76, according to a statement issued by his family.

He died on Tuesday at Baylor St Luke’s medical center in Houston, due to complications from surgery, the statement said.

Starr started his career as a lawyer and was nominated by Ronald Reagan to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1983, a post he maintained for about six years before resigning.

George H.W. Bush later appointed him solicitor general, and he was even briefly in the running to fill a Supreme Court vacancy later taken by David Souter. 

However, Starr rose to prominence in the mid 90s, when he was tapped to investigate Bill and Hillary Clinton’s alleged involvement in an Arkansas real estate project, known as Whitewater.

The Clintons were not prosecuted, but Starr’s probe expanded to include an investigation into Paula Jones’ claims of assault against Bill Clinton, as well as Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky.

The “Starr Report,” released in September 1998, claimed Clinton lied about his affair with Lewinsky and cited obstruction of justice, perjury, abuse of power, and more as reasons for impeaching Clinton. 

The “Starr Report”, an official document for the US Congress, became a bestseller when commercially sold.

The report was what led to Clinton’s impeachment in the House of Representatives, but he was acquitted on all counts in the Senate.

In an interview with the Guardian in 2018, Starr declined to apologize to, and denied bullying Lewinsky over his harsh tactics with her, who said Starr made her life “a living hell.”

In 1998 he arranged for her to be hustled by law enforcement to a hotel room where she was threatened with 27 years in prison (three more years than her age at the time) unless she wore a wire and snitched on Clinton.

Starr’s leverage over Lewinsky was that she had lied about her affair with the president in a civil lawsuit.

However, Lewinsky tweeted a very measured message, saying Starr’s death brought up “complicated feelings” but sympathizing with his loved ones.

After making a name for himself investigating Clinton’s sexual impropriety, Starr returned to his career as a lawyer and found himself involved in a handful of prominent cases.

Last year, it was reported that Starr joined Jeffrey Epstein’s legal team and played a crucial part in pressuring the Justice Department to drop its sex-trafficking case against the billionaire.

Starr helped Epstein secure the infamous deal that landed him in prison for just 18 months and effectively ensured him immunity from future prosecution.

But Epstein wasn’t the only abuser Starr tried to help. In 2013, he wrote a letter of support for Christopher Kloman, a teacher that was sentenced to 43 years in prison for the abuse of five girls.

Three years after that, Starr resigned as director of Baylor University, and a professor at its law school after an investigation found that him and other authorities mishandled accusations of abuse against the school’s football players.

Funnily enough, the man who made a name for himself trying to take down one president (Clinton), tried to help another (Trump), stave off the same fate.

He argued against impeaching Donald Trump over the Mueller report, claiming it would be “bad for the country.”

Starr later joined Trump’s legal team when he was impeached (the first time) for abuse of power and obstruction of justice after he allegedly tried to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden.