Ken Starr, prosecutor in Clinton-Lewinsky investigation, lifeless at 76 By Reuters

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Ken Starr, the prosecutor whose investigation led to the impeachment of former U.S. President Invoice Clinton in 1998, has died at age 76, his household stated in an announcement on Tuesday.

Starr died on Tuesday in Houston from problems from surgical procedure, his household stated.

Starr got here to nationwide prominence because the particular prosecutor who investigated the sex-and-perjury scandal that led to then-President Clinton’s impeachment.

The investigation into Clinton’s affair with former White Home intern Monica Lewinsky produced a book-length official doc for Congress that grew to become a bestseller when commercially bought as “The Starr Report.”

Providing startling glimpses of sexual trysts intermingled with the densest legalese, the report discovered Clinton’s try to cowl up the affair supplied grounds for impeachment.

“In response to Ms. Lewinsky, she carried out oral intercourse on the president on 9 events. On all 9 of these events, the president fondled and kissed her naked breasts,” “The Starr Report” stated. “She referred to as him ‘Good-looking’; occasionally, he referred to as her ‘Sweetie,’ ‘Child,’ or generally ‘Expensive.'”

The scandal centered on Clinton’s try to cowl up his relationship with Lewinsky, and the impeachment costs stemmed from his false denial of the connection in his 1998 grand jury testimony and in a deposition in a sexual harassment case filed towards him by Paula Jones of Arkansas the place Clinton had been governor.

On Dec. 19, 1998, the U.S. Home of Representatives voted to question Clinton – solely the second president till then to face this cost of wrongdoing. A subsequent Senate trial didn’t take away him from workplace.

Starr repeatedly stated that nobody, not even the U.S. president, was above the legislation.

Born July 21, 1946, in Vernon, Texas, Starr was a clerk to former Chief Justice Warren Burger in 1974 and 1975, and in 1981, he grew to become counselor to William French Smith, then-President Ronald Reagan’s first lawyer common.

In 1989, he grew to become solicitor-general, the U.S. authorities’s chief litigator.

In that job, he argued 25 circumstances, together with controversial lawsuits on abortion rights and college prayer. Earlier than he grew to become particular prosecutor, he was usually talked about as a Republican president’s potential nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court docket.