Kenneth Starr, personal lawyer to former US president Donald Trump departs the Capitol on 3 February, 2020 in Washington, DC. Photo: AFP
Kenneth Starr, the prosecutor whose investigation led to President Bill Clinton's impeachment, has died at the age of 76, his family says.
Starr, a former judge and US solicitor general, died at a Houston hospital of complications from surgery.
As the independent counsel investigating Clinton, Starr became a household name across the US.
More recently he served on the team defending former President Donald Trump from impeachment in 2020.
A native of Texas, Starr was appointed by the US Department of Justice in 1994 to investigate Whitewater, a scandal-plagued 1980s land venture that involved both Bill and Hillary Clinton.
While conducting the investigation, Starr found evidence that Clinton had been having an affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.
It resulted in Clinton being impeached by the US House of Representatives in 1998. He was later acquitted by the Senate. Starr wrote about the inquiry in a bestselling book, Contempt: A Memoir of the Clinton Investigation.
Years later, in 2016, Starr was forced to leave a position as President of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, after an inquiry determined that the school had mishandled rape accusations involving members of its football team. The scandal also led to his resignation as the university's chancellor and as a law professor.
Starr continued to practise law after leaving the university. He also taught constitutional law, penned several books and featured as a legal pundit for Fox News.
In early 2020, he again returned to the national spotlight by joining a team defending Trump against impeachment proceedings.
That inquiry stemmed from claims the then-president had withheld military aid to Ukraine in a bid to force the country to dig up dirt on his political rivals. Trump was acquitted of the charges.
Impeachment, Starr said at the time, was a "matter of last resort", arguing that the charges against Trump paled in comparison to those faced by Clinton.
- BBC
