 Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth StarrStarr’s appointment Starr, 52, served as an assistant to Attorney General William French Smith from 1981 to 1983, when President Reagan appointed him a federal appeals court judge. In 1989, President Bush named Starr Solicitor General, the federal government's top advocate before the Supreme Court. In 1993 he entered private practice with Kirkland & Ellis. Starr had no prosecutorial experience when he was appointed by a three-judge panel in August 1994 to work as the Whitewater independent counsel. He replaced Robert Fiske Jr., who was appointed by Attorney General Janet Reno. He was a controversial figure, partly because he had consulted with lawyers for Paula Jones regarding legal arguments to be made against President Clinton's claim that he was immune to Jones's sexual harassment lawsuit while serving as president. In January of 1998, Starr expanded his investigation into the Lewinsky matter. Eight months later he delivered a detailed and sexually graphic report on Lewinsky's liaison with Clinton and the president's attempts to conceal it. Starr found that there was evidence that Clinton had tampered with witnesses, such as Lewinsky and White House secretary Betty Currie, in order to foil the Jones lawsuit. On May 7, 1999, Starr's prosecution of Julie Hiatt Steele ended in mistrial after a jury deadlocked over whether Steele lied under oath regarding her friend Kathleen E. Willey, a former White House volunteer who alleges she was sexually accosted by Clinton. In June of 1999, Starr said he will file a final report on his investigation but had not decided what would be in the report. |