Ken Starr: Former U.S. Solicitor General, head Clinton investigator, dead at 76

HOUSTON — Former U.S. Solicitor General and the head investigator into the Clinton impeachment case, Ken Starr has died at the age of 76.

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According to a news release from Starr’s family, Starr passed away on Tuesday at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center in Houston, Texas, from complications after surgery.

Starr was a Reagan judicial appointee, he was solicitor general under then-President George H.W. Bush, President and Chancellor of Baylor University and Dean of the Pepperdine School of Law, according to the news release.

He argued 36 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and 25 of those were when he served as U.S. Solicitor General from 1989 to 1993, according to the news release.

Starr was best known for leading the Whitewater case which started as a probe of real estate investments by then-President Bil Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton, according to CNBC. The investigation reached other areas including the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal that went into the president’s extramarital affair with the White House intern. Clinton was impeached by the House on perjury and obstruction of justice charges but was later acquitted by the Senate of all charges.

Starr is survived by his wife Alice Mendell Starr, whom he was married to for 52 years, according to the news release. He is also survived by his three children, Randall P. Starr, Carolyn S. Doolittle and Cynthia S. Roemer, plus his nine grandchildren.

The news release said that Starr will be buried at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin, Texas, on September 24.

“The world will remember Ken Starr as a brilliant thinker, leader, and defender of truth and justice. I will remember Ken Starr as a devoted personal friend and a man of sincere and deep faith. Thank you, Ken, for your love of God, your love of family and your love for all of us. You will always be remembered in American history, but you will be specifically remembered in our hearts,” said Antioch Community Church’s Senior Pastor Jimmy Seibert in the news release.

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Photos: Ken Starr through the years 1997: American lawyer and judge Kenneth Starr resigns after Whitewater scandal in February 1997. (Amy Toensing/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)

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