Good afternoon everyone and welcome back if your with us earlier or you just joining us welcome to the Annapolis Book festival into the key school read my name is john beat i am a Foreign Service officer for International Development but much more importantly, am a proud father of three including a son who is a junior here at key school. I am very delighted to be able to join this conversation with our next author. Kenneth starr. Lets graciously come back to the festival this year to talke about his latest book. A memoir of his time leaving the 1990s investigations into whitewater and the Monica Lewinsky matter during the tenure president bill clinton. When youve been in the White House Center of theil public ey, as can certainly t has, judge starr probably needs no introduction but ill just give you a quick snapshot of his distinguished career and law and public service. Heis hamza graduate of George Washington university coming brown university, duke law school, he was the us solicitor general, he was dean of the pepperdine my school, chancellor and president of baylor university, and he is been a wry distinguished private attorney with firms in california. Texas and washington dc and he also was something called an independent counsel. Even though we have a very bright crowd here because this is the key school and this is the annapolis area. I bet if i ask you or if i said the three names newbold morris, athlete, rain and John B Anderson and youre not allowed to answer can. I bet no one knows who they are. But if i said the names Archibald Cox, ken starr and beaumont broke, you know im talking about a very select of special prosecutors independent councils, special counsel who were appointed and have been appointed to look into highlevel high visible little cases involving the executive branch. There are some differences in distinct joints between each of those titles and we will get into that a little bit later with ken. But first i wanted to take and start off by taking us back to 1994. Ac youd been in private practice with the chicago Firm Kirkland and ellis and joining very nice time in the washington dc area area when teaching law and nyu. You get a call. From judge sentelle. He was calling to ask if you would be willing about replacing bob was heading up the whitewater investigation. Ken, why did you want to leave this great job and time in the dc area and b go back into the political arena and if you have any idea what you are about to get into. Fools rush in and i had no idea. Ea not whatsoever. But when i arrived in little rock, on the day of my appointment, and i thought well its a failed land deal in arkansas and will maybe take six investigate and wrap up. There wasnt that much money involved, but when i arrived in little rock up on that fateful afternoon, i had taken the oath of office just quietly. We didav have family president ,s just an assignment go get it done. Ii arrived in bob fisks office and bob, this is going to foreshadow bob muller and all of that was appointed by the attorney general as special counsel. Ey he had a different title and the titles have switched but he was an appointee of an attorney general reno. So i am sitting in his office and i knew bob, very distinguished lawyer in new york and id actually worked with him we had had chats about even practicing together at the highest regard and i still do for robert fisk. Bob said, and i described this in the book i talked about, can move your family to little rock, you are going to be here for a long time. [laughter] he had found more than a failed land deal in our arkansas. Could you takeld us into your operational debt. How big was your team, who was working there,ho lawyers, fbi agents, and who are some of the key actors on your team . The Team Expanded or contracted depending on the circumstances. We assigned lawyers to specificc matters, the death of Vincent Foster junior for example. The fraudulent billings of webster hubbell, name from the past but who was the associate attorney general of the United States and hillarys law partner at the Rose Law Firm. Who entered a guilty plea for defrauding clients as a law firm and the clients concluded the United States fraud was really bad but one of the victims of the fraud was United States government. Will be into that person. So there were different matters under investigation but one of the significant things that happened early on john. Was i would overnight from being a law person, id been a judge, as you were kind enough to mention, i did two tours of duty in the Justice Department. The news york times was very sweet and while no one was saying bob fisk needs to go, and we need a replacement, the special division that did the appointed of this special counsel,po independent counsel s i was called, they determined know we need is someone who is truly independent. Of the Justice Department bob had been appointed by the attorney general. There is a real logic there. But in any of it, New York Times praised my appointment. Two weeks later, the New York Times called on me to resign. [laughter] now and those two weeks, i hadnt done much bad, in fact, i had done nothing at all. [laughter] but the political changed the fact of what howard kurtz called the spin cycle inside the clinton Propaganda Machine and im not being political here, this is just reality and history. I then was w visited so this cos back to who was the team by someone i see some people who might be as old as i am and you remember something called watergate. At one of the heroes of real truth seeker was sam dash. Sam had been a very successful assistant d. A. In philadelphia and he was also an academic at georgetown, and i know sam well. Sam comes to my office and says ken, your being of your because of your republican credentials. Yes, i noticed that sam. I am not a republican, its worked very well known i am a prominent democrat, and he said you should consider chicken a balance. There was something i had not expected to do, nor to have to do but as we geared up finally i will say for the trial, have as it turned out that there was Serious Fraud there. In little rock and as we gear up for the trial, against the sitting governor and james and Susan Mcdougall names from the past, but some you may recall, the james and Susan Mcdougall with the sole owners of the madison guaranty savings and loan which had collapsed. It fraud. Madison guaranty was hillarys client. At the Rose Law Firm which raised a series of questions. It also was in Fact Institution whose funding was in fact used inappropriately for the financing of the whitewater land deal. It really gets complex and when you unravel it all, there was fraud at the core of the entire transaction of the financing ofn the whitewater land l deal. So as we look to head at that trial, knowing that we were going to trial, we were not going to get some of the guilty pleas Robert Palmer and appraiser he had in it fraudulent appraisal. Some people and you seet whats unfolding now in the scandal involving college admissions, right it is a pretty ugly situation. People are entering guilty pleas. Thats what we were experiencing in the upshot was that we expanded the trial team in the trial team by the way what included Rod Rosenstein. The now Deputy Attorney general of the United States. You mentioned that it really is a very complex web of transactions that you were looking under whitewater. Also some very prominent offshoots of the investigations one of which was at that time a very controversial death. And confident former law partner of Hillary Clintons vince foster who was at the Time White House counsel and there were some questions surrounding the circumstances of his death. You ultimately were able to conclude that it was in fact suicide. Could you talk a little bit about that. How did you come to that conclusion. Bob had undertaken confiscated undertaken an examination of the circumstances of the death and some foster was a very successful lawyer a law partner, the Rose Law Firm. Of hillary. The three of them were very very close. Im very pleased to say there was no suggestion that vince foster was somehow involved in the fraudulent transactions involving medicine and i guarantee but within seven months of coming to washington dc, this very successful prominent lawyer from all appearances happily married with the family took his own life. So bob concluded it was a acsuicide, there were so many conspiracy theories and so i decided we need to take a second lookok and look and just make se that we have done absolutely everything to examine the questions that were being raised because there were suggestions that were illfounded but there were suggestions that vince foster in fact was a victim of a homicide. And that his body had been b mod from marcy park sos lets just call conspiratorial theories. We took a very elaborate look at that, we did hire experts and some of the leading experts in the country country for forensic examinations and i think we prove beyond a shadow of a doubt not just beyond a reasonable doubt that he in fact did commit suicide. What a raise in the book is why did he commit suicide. Why was he depressed. The why is something that i do speculate about in the book because i think he was a person of conscious, and there were some aspects of the former partners relationship with the Rose Law Firm including the socalled missing Rose Law Firm billing records that showed that hillary had in fact performed services, not that she committed fraud but that she had committed participated in various it legal advice aspects to madison and guaranty savings and loan including transactions that were clearly fraudulent. It didnt prove that she was aware of the fraud, thats the key distinction. Nc now back to why with the Rose Law Firm records in those pre electronic days, commencing. In the Rose Law Firm said, they were stolen. This is not proper. [laughter] you dont take billing records at a law firm. They were of course eventually found. Ve in the residence of the white house. Contrary to some opinions, investigations like the one you ran, and the onest of course bob roller had just run, having referred to is sometimes as fishing expeditions, hoaxes, which ends. You by character and by definition by the effective the professionals from the Justice Department that are tearing these investigations out, they are anything but. And really to be able to take anything under your review youve got to really get the goahead which in your case, when the Monica Lewinsky matter came under your purview, you initially add. First i like to know how that came to your attention. And then, youad ultimately had o get permission from the attorney general of the time janet reno to move forward. Could you talk a little bit about that. colon this is a young woman who was Monica Lewinsky , working alongside me here at the pentagon in Public Affairs and Public Information office has made me aware there is a relationship with the president most relevantly she is asking me to commit perjury because she has committed perjury herself pregnant at the end of that phone call on sunday night i was actually at the American Bar Association meeting inin colorado one colorado. Who actually know me im a witness in the vince foster investigation. I am linda tripp. So we took steps some of which have been criticized which goes of the territory. But we verified what linda had told us and the surreptitious tape recording with a number of telephone conversations with monica and so we were reviewing those the fbi was looking at those as well. But then we had the famous episode at ritzcarlton that was severely criticizederti but the conduct wasd vindicated in litigation. We confirmed real time this was exactly underway that monica was encouraging the linda to file injurious case we take Sexual Harassment very seriously that this was essentially a civil rights case brought by paula jones at the time was an employee of the arkansas government. She alleged there was a very horrible kind of event that was unsettling to her so she brought federal court action under civil rights laws against clinton for his conduct, although allegations were his alleged conduct in a hotel in the rock. In connection with that all of this was underway with false perjurious affidavits and false statements encouraging others to lie. Ot intense public scrutiny and back and forth politically at this time. One thing your book brings out quite poignantly is that you have to have thickck skin to go into these jobs for quite a to say theyre thankless but theyre very difficult and you will make half the people upset before you come out. I wonder about the toll this takes on you personally or bob mulder personally and your families. Your wife was quoted at one point during whitewaterhite sayg this is a nightmare which will not end and in the one example that hit me and a lot of people who sent your kids off to college your daughter was sent off to clinton one year after Chelsea Clinton and she gets there and is receiving credible Death Threats and has 24 hour protection. What a great freshman year. [laughter] i cannot say enough praise to those United StatesMarshals Service that was professional and superb but they had to do the job because it was appointed by the court once you are protected because there was a point where the court under the statute that existed, i was treated as if i were a judge. I was not paid as well as a judge but protection came from the us marshals and they did a wonderful job. It was a toll. T had aroundtheclock security at the house so a command post was outside the house that we call the brady h bunch house. Which the press already knew so the press was outside the house most days they would go away once i left for the office and the press was fine in fact one story was at the funeral of scilly a couple years ago, ago, coming out of the cathedra cathedral, commenting on the record about Justice Scalia with the dc circuit before whom i had argued when i was solicitor general. With say my piece that i am leaving one said by the way i camped outside your house you may not recognize me i was there for eight months i said i am sorry he said i saved a lot of money we made a down payment on her house thanks to you. [laughter] so some good comes out of that. But some of the pressures were on the family but the family was strong and surrounded by faith and friends with the support of our home church and neighborhood. We had a great episode involving michael moore. A very entertaining episode from the filmmaker i have time to tell it but its a very colorful story and across the street ss neighbor had a young kid and the youngest was a future stanford quarterback futurere nfl named kevin hogan and she comes out this is all captured on cnn. Who said gets out of this neighborhood we have children here you are scaring everybody. And michael has some colorful things to say to donna hogan. Al those are whimsical and not so whimsical moments but looking back to just suggest the controversy in the national to malta but we came through it as a country we come through these things as we did during the administration of uss grant so how do we in a free society that believes in rule fof law and accountability keep the president and those around him or her honest . And if they are serious allegations of wrongdoing , will be suddenly say which is the case ins some countries, excusehe me, our chief executive is above the law but not in the United States. So it is unpleasant as all get out and especially not fun for those wrapped up like clinton or hillary or chelsea this was a horrible episode to go through. On a personal level, yes a lot of cost but in terms of who we are with the constitutional democracy isnt it reassuring to know that truly no one is above the law . Thats the goal. That is a statement you have made publicly and also in the book very frequently it is clear it is a bedrock principle for you. The other thing that is interesting in the book is things that come out that people are not familiar with. Did you know ken started as a democrat and was a big admirer of john kennedy. And still am. But not still a democrat. [laughter] we have a song i saw the light. [laughter] you have a polite audience. Thank you for restraining yourself. But i tell that story very briefly i was in Young Democrats and my epiphany was sitting at the feet of a republican congressman from texas as a sixth generation to hear his philosophy and learning about the vision of the United States of america is t freedom and this is of the time to get into that but guilty as charged. Also the old saying attributed to bernard shaw he will make hgender neutral he who has no heart he who is not conservative has no head. [laughter] you also make the point which is personally revealing that even though you agreed to some of the other political leanings that he had at the time of senator fulbright, his anti civil rights record and voting actions that were against you. Ce your clear reverence for the law, the fact you rightfully believe nobody is above the law. I think some of your principles of social justice i want to get your thoughts because as a unique perch as a judge andnd prosecutor and law professor on our legal system which is the envy of the world fr many respects but look at africanamericans that are incarcerated double the rates of their share of the Us Population we still have no convictions for prosecution for senior officials involved 2007 financial crisis. You see headlines about wealthy individuals that escape prosecution and not gettingis punishment commensurate with the scale ofof their crimes. Given your respect to see these things how do we fix the system to make it more fair quick. To be sensitive to and skeptical about those reforms , i remember all too vividly the move toward the federal level in the states have seen this as mandatory minimum sentences. I think a number of grave injustices have been done that has gone disproportionately heavily on the Africanamerican Community with these offenses. I have long been sitting at the feet of a wonderful man chief Justice Burger for two years when i clerked for him and one of his limitations was to throw people in prison and forget about them he would quote churchill of a sign of a Civilized Society that caresne about those who are incarcerated to give them opportunities for rehabilitation. Finally, with such a rich subject but i would say that you are hearing this beware prosecutorial power and be skeptical about thatke power. We have been involved not heavily but a supportive way of the Innocence Project and if you go on their website , you will see case after case of serious convictions for the most heinous crimes and guess what . The defendant was actually innocent. At pepperdine i was attending a program on you silly on ucla chatting with a woman who is onw death row in california for the homicide of a family member. She was factually innocent and exonerated by dna. One of the things i am deeply concerned that i hear in formally the selfassurance of prosecutors. We know we have the right person so we will use every tool to bring them down. You should know that criticism because it is directed atm you and almost any prosecutor that has been in the business for a while. We have to be skeptical about the exercise of power and in particular that which is the functional equivalent of the unforgivable sin which is what we call the brady violation thatat a prosecutor knowingly sits on scope of tory evidence for go that prosecutor is duty bound as a constitutional right on the part of the defendant to turn over scope of tory evidence. School for tory mom school put tory evidence i dont have a proof but it is conversational and anecdotal that we need to be firm when we find a brady prosecution and drum them out of the prosecutorial courts power corrupts. We have a long way to go but it is encouraging to hear about the Innocence Project. There are some clear similarities between your work and that which was recently concluded but also some stark differences in terms of mandate and reporting responsibilities. You wrote a piece in the atlantic last month about this. What are the key differences between your t work quick. One is the method of appointment. After the 21 year experiment of the independent counsel arena congress thought military authorized and i applaud them but in the Reagan Administration serving as chief of staff objected to the special prosecutor provisions raising serious policy questions butt also unconstitutional of the powers of the president. Weight. Its okay to fire Archibald Cox appointed by the attorney general . Know it was not but look what happened. The acting attorney general promptly within 11 11 days nominated one nominated Leon Jaworski who carried on the rest of the investigation of the rest is history. And history is a great teacher somebody would tell us that Ulysses S Grant fired a special counsel of his time but the investigation went on. That harry truman fired the attorney general who fired the special prosecutor early 19 fifties but the investigation went on. The showbi will go on. So congress didnt need to do what it did that where it performs at those unintended consequences to restore the authority within the constitutional structure of article two now under the regulations that bob mueller was appointed the attorney general makes that appointment now Rod Rosenstein made this appointment as the acting attorney general as Jeff Sessions recused himself. The other thing that i would say right now that is so huge is the reporting requirement i was reaped obligated to send my findings to the congress of the unitedgr states. In effect i was a tool of congress. No longer. The regulations which have been in effect 20 years when bob mueller was reported completely scale back the reporting obligation. I have been saying in public arenas look at the law. The attorney general of the United States was under criticism and much of it is misguided, is to follow the regulations and those call for bob mueller to do exactly what he has done. He is an honorable person who is now provided to the attorney general keyword, confidential report. Under the same regulations this has the effect of law the internal one attorney general is to notifyfy congres thcongress, he did on march 22nd to set forth the principal conclusions that is what the regulations call for. Not to release the report. That is the law. That having been said both in confirmation hearings and letters he has reiterated that and more recently from a week ago the attorney general said i want to air on the side of transparency w. So there will be a release of the report but it will have redactions. Why wouldld you leave anything out . You leave those out which i will use three examples. Grand jury information is a matter of law that must come out. Barring a court order and second, National Security information almost all people of goodwill will say protect National Security methods and sources. The third category is privacy. The report may have information that will not serve a Public Information function that could be embarrassing to one or more individuals. That was exactly the concern with the starr report and thats one of the reasons we see these episodes with now chairman nadler at the time calling for careful treatment of the starr report. So he voted with the house of representativesse not to release the starr report and we encouraged this look with the nature of that report with intimate details that show the president in our view committed perjury and obstruction of justice but the c nature was very private in nature. So what the attorney general is doing now what the regulations call him to do and they set their face against the openness and transparency regime of independent counsel statute. You were quoted to say recently that you think bob mueller probably should have made the hard callhe on the obstruction of justice claim. Why do you think he didnt quick. I dont have a good theory i have heard various theories but i do think it was his responsibility to do so. From what i have seen, i am not one of the president s lawyers but i have said this publicly firing james call me may have been wise or unwise , but i do not see how as a matter of law that is obstruction of justice. Other things have been in the public domain. I think i have managed to convince on this point some prominent members of the media not my persuasive powers but the rulings of the Supreme Court of the United States that has narrowly construed obstruction of justice. We can go into that but why did he not do it . Dershowitz has an interesting theory im happy to pass that along. He is a great civil libertarian. His theory that bob did not want to overrule his staff and that he had a less capacious view of what constitutes obstruction of justice in one persons theory we shall see. We have about ten minutes left and there are a lot of people who are itching to ask your opinions so i believe some time for audience questions. If you have a question please come to the microphone. I have a question about the privacy criteria for redactio redaction, what are the parameters or checks and balances . Those are fundamentally a judgment call for the attorney general to say i dont think it would serve the Public Interest for the following three sentences to be included because of embarrassment factors unjustified notoriety and with checks and balances i think we will see that play out we have the beginning of lively conversation between esthe house and the Justice Department. I envision a time will come there will be an end camera review we will have the chairman and senior staff people look at the full set of information no matter how embarrassing it might to be thats not done in frequently and we s shall see what the protocol is and that will emerge it isnt judicial review. Was that a consideration in your report in terms of relevance whether a private matter was essential to include . I describe this in the book we had a very lively and continuing conversation about the detail we set forth the nature of the relationshi relationship, deeply private relationship that what we determine these are professional prosecutors guiding me but i made the decision we have to prove the president committed perjury and obstruction of justice beyond any shadow of a doubt. And the fax were not disputed. I wish when we look back this could have been avoided as la guardia famously said when i make aai mistake but recognition and admission settling the civil action but even before the Supreme Court ruled unanimously nine nothing so not an ideological divide that he did not enjoy immunity from the Sexual Harassment civil Rights Action that would have been good for the first family to have been settled well over 95 percent of civil cases settle. This turned out to be it was eventually but only after the country was through this unfortunate hte process. I came here today to get a reevaluation of the things that i remember during your investigation with the president and i have to say the president s behavior, i look at that with new eyes and in spite of the Metoo Movement and the assumptions we were making so what was not present so after coming here today and hearing you speak and youre not the monster you were portrayed as. [laughter] sorry about that. Used to be a sunday School Teacher and Little League coach. But thank you. So which of the criticisms about w you that you think might have been justified . It is a multipart question. [laughter] and one of the things now i lost my train of thought. A fair criticism i level that myself is that i took on the Monica Lewinsky ininvestigation to begin with. Not that it didnt have to be investigated. Sometimes i say that of course ithi did but if the president is committing perjury and ryobstruction of justice im sorry this is not russia. You have to investigate it. But the context is such please. It is Sexual Harassment civil rights everyone has his or her erright and for everyones honest effort it is as simple as that. It really is. Those that are very complicatedmp but i would accept criticism such as the travel office firings that hillary engineered i can be fairly faulted for taking on the fbi file scandal. The files of republicans miraculously finding their way into the white house. Utterly inappropriate. But the good news is we determined there was no sufficient evidence in either of those matters to bring criminal charges. So call it the exoneration. And we could do it efficiently but i think what happened as the investigation went on and took longer we did not get cooperation. This is huge i dont know anything i could have done to stop this but once we had the conviction we thought this is a breakthrough hes been convicted of Serious Fraud now this is a breakthrough moment Jim Mcdougall began to cooperate and said that the president of the United States committed perjury during the trial. You can accept that or reject it but it is serious stuff but we could not get the information we needed from jim he says you have to ask susan. Susan mcdougall declined to gcooperate famously went into civil contempt and we tried her for criminal contempt she was acquitted and then we had a hung jury. Ge i wish to this day and this is a regret that once we had the white water convictions get it over with. Everyone cooperate and let the chips fall where they may including findings that might beha unflattering of the president and the firstst lady. During the lewinsky phase of the investigation we were met with claims of executive privilege that were completely and meritorious. We were met with other efforts does that sound familiar . To obstruct the investigation such as the creation of a fanciful privilege called a protective function privilege that creates guard that could not provide evidence in the president to be in league with a foreign power. [laughter] imagine. It might very well be secret Service Agents might have been around when a meeting or conversation was had. Could that be relevant . Yes that month after month or week after week that was some selfcriticism but everything we did we try to do consistent with the rule of law as efficiently asou we could and i felt that so much of this story had never really been told or see the light of day. Thank you this is a very distinguished Foreign Service officer great question. As a man who has devoted his life to theo law, what is your opinion of the facts about the money involved in politics now and also Citizens United quick. I applaud Citizens United so i will be in the minority of this distinguished group i am a fervent believer in freedom of speech and just as the New York Times requires money to produce the New York Times and cnn and they need their voices heard i was very impressed with so many candidates are depending on small contributions. I think that simply not the case as the empirical reality the most heavily finance candidates always win that just does notot happen when corporate contributions go to control i dont think that is demonstrable empirically. I know it seems to be the case but i think the facts rebut that. That having been said i think an enormous amount of money in politics is wasted such as high paid consultants. Im losing half of my audience here. [laughter] it is a washington dc area. I know a lot of the consultants. They are extremely bright but it is pricey to guide a candidate frequently into dark that couplele would believe n the first amendment. I would say another example, if you got the burn and giving money to senator sanders for this many years and hes not getting a lot of Corporate Support is he at least that i raknow of, so there example aftr example where we have a very healing process but i know that goes against the grain rethinking of a lot of thoughtful people that do worry about money and politics. I think after corruption there it is, corruption. Look at the next administration and the sale of investor ships that was corruption. I am afraid thats all we have time for today. I want to thank everyone in the audience, and i want to thank ken starr for coming back for the Annapolis Book festival take you all very much good afternoon. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] booktv recently went to capitol hill and representative john of california, what was on his reading list. A lot of things. First of all a