Kenneth Winston Starr an American lawyer who served as a United States circuit judge and 39th solicitor general of the United States has died. Starr was born on July 21, 1946 and died Tuesday, September 13, 2022. He was 76 years.
Starr died of complications from surgery, according to a statement from his family.
Starr, best known for leading Whitewater, the expansive investigation which began in 1994 as a probe of real estate investments by then-President Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton, was nominated by former President Ronald Reagan for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C., circuit, and he served as U.S. solicitor general under then-President George H.W. Bush.
The Whitewater investigation branched out to encompass numerous other areas — including the notorious Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, a scandal which involved Clinton’s extramarital affair with Lewinsky, which was purported to have started when she was a 24-year-old White House intern.
Despite denying the relationship, Clinton was impeached by the House on perjury and obstruction of justice charges that stemmed from the scandal. However, he was later acquitted Clinton of all charges by the Senate.
Starr’s investigations also touched on the death of Clinton’s deputy White House counsel Vince Foster, which sparked intrigue and bred conspiracy theories but was ultimately ruled a suicide.
A lot of people involved in the Whitewater scandal were convicted of charges related to the probe, but the Clintons themselves were never criminally charged.
Starr also held roles as dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law and president of Baylor University, a tenure which ended after an investigation into the school’s mishandling of sexual assault cases.