(Washington) Former prosecutor Kenneth Starr, who led the prosecution against Democratic President Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky case, died Tuesday at age 76, his family announced.
Posted at 4:51 p.m.
Updated at 5:11 p.m.
The lawyer, who briefly defended Donald Trump in another impeachment trial, died in a Houston hospital “due to complications following surgery,” his relatives said in a statement.
Kenneth Starr had gained worldwide notoriety in the late 1990s by investigating, as a special prosecutor, Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.
His pugnacity against the president, whom he had forced to publicly unpack his sexual escapades, was not enough to bring him down: Bill Clinton was finally acquitted by the Senate in 1999.
Kenneth Starr, who has never hidden his Republican sensitivities, then worked as a lawyer, professor, university rector or commentator on the conservative Fox News channel.
In 2020, he participated in the defense of Donald Trump during his first impeachment trial. Accused of having conditioned military aid to Ukraine on the opening of an investigation into the son of his rival Joe Biden, the Republican president had been acquitted thanks to the support of senators from his party.