The man whose investigation of the Whitewater real-estate deal eventually led to the impeachment of President Clinton died Tuesday.
Ken Starr was 76.
The death was first reported by NBC News.
A former federal judge and U.S. solicitor-general, Mr. Starr is best known as the special counsel who was first tasked with investigating the suicide of deputy White House counsel Vince Foster, but his investigation was given more and more scope as Mr. Clinton’s legal issues mounted.
It culminated in the Starr Report, which accused Mr. Clinton of lying under oath about an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky during a sexual-harassment lawsuit.
The Republican-led House impeached Mr. Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice on a mostly party-line vote, but he was acquitted by the Senate, again on a mostly party-line vote.
Mr. Starr was vilified by Clinton-backing liberal critics for the rest of his life as an out-of-control prosecutor and a sexphobic prude.
Post-impeachment, he became dean of Pepperdine Law School and president and chancellor of Baylor University, but he resigned the latter post in 2016 in a “mutually agreed separation” over an NPR report’s claims that he was “ignoring sexual assault issues on campus.”
Mr. Starr is survived by his wife of 52 years, Alice Mendell Starr; their three children, Randall P. Starr, Carolyn S. Doolittle, and Cynthia S. Roemer; and nine grandchildren.
Mr. Starr will be buried at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin after a family-only memorial service at Antioch Community Church in Waco, Texas, on Sept. 24.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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