Starr, Kenneth Winston (1946-2022), was a prominent American lawyer, judge, and university official. He served as an independent counsel investigating President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 1999. In 1994, a panel of federal judges appointed Starr, a Republican, to investigate charges of financial misconduct against Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, both Democrats. The charges involved an Arkansas real estate company called the Whitewater Development Corporation. The Clintons had invested in the company in 1978 and sold their interest in 1992, before Clinton became president.
After four years, Starr had made no charges against the Clintons on the Whitewater case. But in January 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice authorized him to expand his investigation into charges of obstruction of justice by Clinton. A former Arkansas state employee named Paula Jones had accused Clinton of sexually harassing her when he was governor of Arkansas. Her lawyers hoped to prove a pattern of sexual misconduct by Clinton. They suspected him of having had sexual relations with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. The lawyers took sworn statements from Clinton and Lewinsky, both of whom denied having sexual relations. Later, however, both admitted that they had what Clinton called “improper intimate contact.”
In 1998, Starr delivered a report to the U.S. House of Representatives outlining possible impeachable offenses stemming from the president’s attempts to cover up the affair. Starr argued that Clinton lied to a grand jury and encouraged others to lie and to conceal evidence. In December 1998, the House impeached Clinton for perjury (lying under oath) and obstruction of justice. The Senate conducted a trial and, two months later, found Clinton not guilty. In October 1999, Starr stepped down from the post of independent counsel to return to his private law practice. In 2004, Starr became dean of Pepperdine University School of Law. He became president of Baylor University in 2010. He was also named chancellor of the university in 2014. In May 2016, the university stripped Starr of his title of president following an investigation into administrators’ handling of sexual assault cases involving football players. Starr resigned his chancellor position in June.
Starr was born in Vernon, Texas, on July 21, 1946. He earned a bachelor’s degree from George Washington University in 1968, a master’s degree from Brown University in 1969, and a law degree from Duke Law School in 1973. He worked as a law clerk to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, counselor to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith, and circuit judge for the United States Court of Appeals (District of Columbia Circuit). Starr served as solicitor general of the United States from 1989 to 1993 under President George H. W. Bush. Starr died on Sept. 13, 2022.
