Former US prosecutor Kenneth Starr, who led the prosecution against Democratic President Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky case, died Tuesday, September 13, at age 76, his family announced.
Kenneth Starr had gained worldwide notoriety in the late 1990s by investigating, as a special prosecutor, Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.
His pugnacity against the president, whom he had forced to publicly unpack his sexual escapades, was not enough to bring him down: Bill Clinton was finally acquitted by the Senate in 1999.
Republican Sensitivity
Kenneth Starr, who has never hidden his Republican sensitivities, then worked as a lawyer, professor, university rector. He had also participated in the defense of Donald Trump during his first impeachment trial, in 2020.
Accused of having conditioned military aid to Ukraine on the opening of an investigation into the son of his rival Joe Biden by the authorities of this country, the Republican president had been acquitted thanks to the support of senators from his party.
On Tuesday, their leader Mitch McConnell said he was saddened by the death of his « ami ». Kenneth Starr “was a brilliant lawyer, an impressive leader and a dedicated patriot”added the senator in a press release.
Crusade against Bill Clinton
Born in Vernon (Texas) on July 21, 1946, this hard worker was deeply marked by his father, a Protestant preacher of the Church of Christ. Claiming never to consume alcohol or tobacco, a fervent follower of family values, this father of three children sang, according to the American media, hymns while jogging.
A brilliant jurist, he was at 37 the youngest of the judges of the Federal Court of Appeals in Washington, one of the most influential in the country. He had then been put in charge by President George Bush of the federal government’s pleadings before the Supreme Court and had entrenched his conservative service record.
Appointed on August 5, 1994 as independent prosecutor in the Whitewater affair, a political and financial imbroglio around a fraudulent bankruptcy in Arkansas at the time of Governor Bill Clinton, Kenneth Starr had embarked on a veritable crusade against the new President.
His investigation had drifted into the extramarital affairs of the tenant of the White House and led to his indictment for perjury in the House of Representatives. Accused of having lied under oath about the nature of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, the Democrat had been forced to make a public confession.
« Inquisitor »
The impeachment trial had, however, aroused unease in a large part of the American population, which had criticized Kenneth Starr for behaving in “inquisitor”. “My feelings for Ken Starr are complicated, but the most important thing is the pain of his loved ones”Tweeted on Tuesday Monica Lewinsky who had accused him in the past of having it “hunted and terrified”.
After Bill Clinton’s acquittal, Kenneth Starr notably became a 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 of the establishment’s American football team accused of sexual assault.