Ken Starr

Kenneth Winston Starr is an American lawyer who served as a United States circuit judge and 39th solicitor general of the United States. He is best known for heading an investigation of members of the Clinton administration, known as the Whitewater controversy. Starr served as the dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law. He was later the president and chancellor of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, from June 2010 until May 2016. On August 19, 2016, Starr announced he would resign from his tenured professor position at Baylor Law School, completely severing his ties with the university.

About Ken Starr in brief

Summary Ken StarrKenneth Winston Starr is an American lawyer who served as a United States circuit judge and 39th solicitor general of the United States. He is best known for heading an investigation of members of the Clinton administration, known as the Whitewater controversy. Starr served as the dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law. He was later the president and chancellor of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, from June 2010 until May 2016. On August 19, 2016, Starr announced he would resign from his tenured professor position at Baylor Law School, completely severing his ties with the university in a \”mutually agreed separation\”. On January 17, 2020, Starr joined President Donald Trump’s legal team during his impeachment trial. Starr attended Sam Houston High School in San Antonio and was a popular, straight‑A student. His classmates voted him most likely to succeed. Starr was not drafted for military service during the Vietnam War, as he was classified 4‑F, because he has psoriasis. He worked in the Southwestern Advantage entrepreneurial program and later attended Brown University, where he earned a Master of Arts degree in 1969. He later transferred to George Washington University, in Washington, D. C., where he received a Bachelor of Artsdegree in history, in 1968. In 1970, Starr married Alice Mendell, who was raised Jewish but converted to Christianity. In 1990, Starr was the leading candidate for Supreme Court nomination after William Brennan’s retirement. He encountered strong resistance from the Department of Justice leadership, which feared that Starr might not be a reliably conservative Supreme Court justice.

In August 1994, Starr replaced Robert B. Fisis as the special prosecutor in the Whitewewater investigation. He replaced Robert F. Boudreau as special prosecutor on August 1, 1994, pursuant to the newly re-authorized Ethics in Government Act of 1994. He served as solicitor general from 1989 to 1993, under President George H. W. Bush. Starr also considered running for the U.S. Senate from Virginia in 1994, but opted against opposing incumbent Chuck Robb, but chose against opposing Oliver Oliver for the Republican nomination for the GOP nomination. He has a son and a daughter, both of whom have served in the Air Force and the Air National Guard. Starr has a brother and a sister, who both served as members of Congress from Texas and New Mexico. His father was a minister in the Churches of Christ who also worked as a barber. Starr is a graduate of Duke University and the University of Texas at Austin. He received his J. D. from Duke University in 1973. He clerked for Chief Justice Warren Burger of the Supreme Court. He joined the Washington, C.C., office of the Los Angeles–based law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in 1977. On September 13, 1983, he was nominated by Ronald Reagan to a seat on the United United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated by George MacKinnon. His service terminated on May 26, 1989, due to resignation. Starr’s service was terminated on September 20, 1983.