Contempt Read online

  Sentinel

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © Kenneth W. Starr

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  ISBN 9780525536130 (hardcover)

  ISBN 9780525536154 (ebook)

  Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity. In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the author’s alone.

  Version_1

  Dedication

  An old saying holds that there are no atheists in foxholes. When you’re in a foxhole, fervent faith abounds and a powerful sense of camaraderie blossoms. Mindful of the message on the banner we hung in the office during the Whitewater trial that “we are honored by our friends and distinguished by our enemies,” I lift up this dedication, first, to my fellow foxhole friends, the intrepid men and women who served courageously in the Office of the Independent Counsel, both in Little Rock and in Washington, D.C. This memoir is not mine alone; it is instead our shared story. I am deeply honored to have been at the battlefront with each and every one of them. They are listed in the acknowledgments. I wish I could say more.

  Second, to the good and gracious residents of Little Rock, who were unfailingly courteous and hospitable to this mission-focused stranger during my long sojourn in the beautiful Natural State, I am deeply thankful. Many Arkansans doubtless felt I overstayed my welcome, but they never showed it. For years, Little Rock was my home away from home.

  Yet at day’s end, there’s no place like home. To my wife, Alice, and our three children, who lived through those tempestuous times and were called upon to make their own very substantial sacrifices of service, I give abiding thanks. It is my hope that this memoir will help explain to our growing brood of Starrs, Doolittles, and Roemers (Randall and Melina, Carolyn and Cameron, Cynthia and Justin, and our precious seven grandchildren) those five long years of seeking the truth and trying my best to serve the cause of justice. For Alice, Randall, Carolyn, and Cynthia: you were there alongside me, even when we were miles apart.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Prologue

  1. Growing Up Starr

  2. The Call

  3. Stepping into Big Shoes

  4. Changing of the Guard

  5. The Vince Foster Death Investigation

  6. Whitewater Complexities

  7. Webb

  8. Follow the Money

  9. White House Depositions

  10. The 825 Trial

  11. “Get Out the Vote Money”

  12. Mysterious Disappearing Documents

  13. Flipping Jim McDougal

  14. Raven and the Bad Boys

  15. Shift to Washington, D.C.

  16. Pepperdine Invitation

  17. Paula Corbin Jones

  18. Disruption

  19. Monica

  20. Explosion

  21. Dirt

  22. Closing the Books on Hillary

  23. Monica in Trouble

  24. Obfuscating the Truth

  25. Breakthrough

  26. The President Testifies

  27. The Referral

  28. Stress on the Family

  29. My Testimony

  30. The Hot Seat

  31. Media Madness

  32. The House Votes to Impeach

  33. The Senate Trial

  34. Winding Down

  35. Legacy of Contempt

  Afterword

  Photographs

  Acknowledgments

  Special Thanks and Acknowledgments

  Sources

  Illustration Credits

  Index

  INTRODUCTION

  For years, people have come up to me and asked, “Why don’t you write a book about your experience during the Clinton investigation? People don’t know your side of the story.” They were right to guess that I had quite a lot I could tell. But they were wrong to imagine I was eager to tell it.

  Think back to the rough outlines of the story: Twenty years ago, after a four-year investigation resulting in fourteen criminal convictions in Arkansas and leading to the resignation of the sitting governor of the state, the Whitewater investigation took a bizarre twist. It was revealed that in 1995 President Bill Clinton had begun an extended Oval Office affair with a twenty-two-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, then tried to cover it up.

  In the fallout from the president’s misdeeds, the nation went through wrenching political turmoil. Much of the drama was tragically unnecessary, a self-inflicted wound by a talented but deeply flawed president who believed he was above the law. In the long and painful saga, he showed contempt not only for the law, but for the American people, whom he willfully misled for his political self-preservation. He also demonstrated a shockingly callous contempt for the women he had used for his pleasure.

  Yet ultimately, the president was lucky. An indulgent and prosperous nation readily forgave Bill Clinton and instead blamed the prosecutor.

  That would be me.

  I became the most criticized man in America and found my hard-won reputation for integrity and fairness under assault. I had a thick skin, but that kind of attack can’t be borne forever without pain. And hurt feelings aside, my family suffered immeasurably, all thanks to the Clintons and their vicious surrogates. According to them, the nation went through the trauma of impeachment not because of Bill Clinton’s offenses, but because of an overly zealous prosecutor.

  In the face of these attacks, I was resolutely silent. I knew I had to grin and bear it. Prosecutors are severely limited in what they can say. The truth would have to come out eventually, but I could not—under my professional obligations—play the Clintons’ game.

  And in the following years I maintained that silence. I hadn’t sought out the job as independent counsel and frankly hadn’t wanted it. I wasn’t burning with desire to live through the unpleasant saga all over again by writing about it. I wanted to move on with my life, to focus on my work in the academic world, where I served as dean of Pepperdine law school before becoming president (and later, simultaneously, chancellor) of Baylor University in my native Texas.

  Then, in 2016, I found myself unexpectedly freed of all these considerations. On June 1, 2016, I was stripped of the Baylor presidency in the wake of serious allegations of sexual violence at an institution that stood for the best values and virtues in human life: treating all persons consistent with the teachings of Christ Jesus and, in particular, the Golden Rule.

  Although I had not been personally implicated in any direct way in the university’s scandal, I was nevertheless in charge of the institution. Captains go down with the ship. As a matter of conscience, I soon resigned from my role as Baylor’s chancellor. I likewise amicably terminated my formal relationship with the Baylor Law School, where I had concurrently held an endowed chair in constitutional law. All this was filled to overflowing with personal anguish, but I found myself suddenly freed from the all-consuming daily responsibilities of the academy.

  Then, in the fall, the 2016 presidential election brought an unexpected and cru
shing conclusion to the political career of Hillary Rodham Clinton. A seeming shoo-in to follow Barack Obama into the Oval Office, Hillary had suffered bitter defeat at the hands of the disruptive newcomer to American politics, Donald Trump. The Clinton era was over.

  Not only was I freed from personal and professional constraints, but the moral compass of the country had shifted since 1998. Furthermore, as questions of presidential obstruction and impeachment have come up in the Trump administration, many are rethinking the Clinton saga and looking for what can be learned from those tumultuous times.

  I concluded that, at long last, the time was right to talk about the Clintons’ contempt.

  By the end of this book, my personal account of the legacy of Bill and Hillary Clinton—a legacy of contempt—I believe most reasonable, open-minded people will agree with me. Or at least they should agree with my basic proposition: that President Clinton and the First Lady knowingly embarked on a continuing course of action that was contemptuous of our revered system of justice.

  I make this bold statement for one key reason: The basic facts are undisputed. The continuing debate is really about the conclusions that “We the People” choose to draw from the crystal-clear record.

  In both a practical and a legal sense, the final judgment has been rendered. It was handed down by Chief Judge Susan Webber Wright, a Little Rock–based federal judge of impeccable credentials and unquestioned integrity. She stands alone in American history. By her judgment, Bill Clinton is the only president in the long national experience who has been held in contempt of court. He chose not to appeal that damning conclusion. That final judgment stands as a reminder to all of us that we live not as subjects, but as citizens under the Constitution and laws of the United States. We live in the sweet land of liberty, but liberty under law.

  Prologue

  In June 1992, I was in Arkansas as Governor Clinton was on the verge of wrapping up the Democratic nomination for president.

  Then U.S. solicitor general, I had long been scheduled to speak at the annual meeting of the Arkansas Bar Association, to be held in Hot Springs that year. I had arrived in Little Rock on a regular commercial flight, but I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted with official Arkansas hospitality, complete with a state trooper chauffeuring me about. As I settled into the front seat of the trooper’s marked car, my uniformed host immediately remarked, “That’s just like Bill. That’s where he sits.”

  The trooper, whose name I have protected to this day, had been a member of Governor Clinton’s security detail, and had served a tour of duty at the Governor’s Mansion. “Bill,” the governor and soon-to-be president, always rode in the front seat.

  With no prompting from his out-of-town passenger, the trooper gave me an earful. Out came salacious story after salacious story about the governor’s notorious extracurricular escapades. The trooper’s highly specific details suggested that the tales were not made up.

  This was not the first time I’d heard rumors of Clinton’s sexual adventures. As Clinton battled for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, his purported affairs had spilled out into the tabloids. Reporters had fanned out across Arkansas and were looking for juicy tidbits about the youthful chief executive. On January 23, 1992, a nightclub singer named Gennifer Flowers had peddled her story of a twelve-year affair with Clinton to a tabloid. He denied it.

  Then Flowers produced tapes of her conversations with Bill. The tapes did not seem to lie.

  The erupting controversy seemed sufficiently serious for his political future that on January 26, both Bill and Hillary appeared on CBS’s 60 Minutes. Bill, biting his lip, got close to an admission. “I have acknowledged causing pain in my marriage. I have said things to you tonight and to the American people from the beginning that no American politician ever has.” His “nonadmission” admission demonstrated early on that “the Man from Hope” masterfully employed the English language to his great advantage.

  While I found Clinton’s behavior unadmirable, I’d not had much occasion to spend time dwelling on his misdeeds. Now I was a captive audience. My new friend prattled away. He repeated the salty language spewed out by Arkansas’s First Lady when, on one occasion, she discovered a clandestine episode under way in the guest cottage of the Governor’s Mansion. A former beauty pageant queen, the trooper told me, had been Bill Clinton’s amorous guest.

  The trooper clearly did not care for the governor’s spouse. Yet he had genuine affection for “Bill.” He had even told Clinton that he had not voted for him. Clinton inquired why.

  “Bill, you know you don’t support law enforcement,” the officer said. “I have to lay down linoleum at night and on weekends as a second job just to make ends meet.”

  Bill responded, “You know I’m doing the best I can for law enforcement, but I had to take care of the teachers!”

  “Exactly, you take care of the teachers, but you don’t look after cops.”

  Charmed by his story, I gently probed whether the trooper had faced any recriminations because of his anti-Clinton vote.

  “Bill wouldn’t do that,” he insisted. There it was: the genuine empathy—and relational power—of Bill Clinton. Though a Rhodes scholar and Yale Law graduate, William Jefferson Clinton was truly a man of the people.

  Little did I know that in less than two years, after the governor became president, I would be tasked to investigate this magnetic, articulate politician, rightly dubbed by his biographer David Maraniss “First in His Class.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Growing Up Starr

  Bill Clinton and I were born one month apart in the summer of 1946, not so far from each other geographically. He was born in Hope, Arkansas, and I in Vernon, Texas. We both graduated from high school in 1964 and eventually became lawyers.

  Despite surface similarities—baby boomers, lawyers, from the South—Bill Clinton and I had little in common. Unlike Clinton, who was raised in a dysfunctional household with an alcoholic father, I had the blessing of growing up with both parents in a faith-filled home. My childhood was pleasant, even idyllic, despite what some might view as an austere upbringing.

  It was anything but.

  My father, William Douglas Starr, was a bookish minister with a practical streak. He loved to garden and often barbered on the side to supplement his income. My mother, Vannie Trimble Starr, was a stay-at-home mom. Kind but firm disciplinarians, my parents didn’t turn a blind eye to my childhood temper tantrums, but they didn’t react harshly either.

  Soon after my birth, my parents moved to East Texas to be near family, then to San Antonio when I was in third grade. Dad was a minister in the Churches of Christ, an evangelical community emphasizing the autonomy of local congregational governance. In those days, Church of Christ members typically avoided dancing and drinking alcohol. To this day, most congregations do not use musical instruments in worship, so I grew up with a cappella singing as a major part of church services. My mother had a lovely soprano voice. Naturally musical, I loved singing at church, hearing the congregation’s voices blend in four-part harmony.

  As I grew older, I went to song-leader school and from time to time as a teenager I would lead worship. My mother insisted on piano lessons, and I delighted in hearing a soaring organ play Bach. To this day, I frequently say everything reminds me of a song.

  I had no “road to Damascus” experience on my Christian journey. I was baptized at age twelve by my father. Reading the Bible imparted a love of language and literature. Though I later took issue with certain Church of Christ traditions, particularly its disapproval of instrumental music, I was never rebellious. I preached my first sermon soon after my baptism—for ten minutes on a Sunday night, when youngsters were allowed in the pulpit. Priceless training for a future lawyer.

  My parents placed an extraordinarily high value on education. My father had attended Freed-Hardeman College in Tennessee on a preacher’s scholarship. I
was born just as my sister, Billie Jeayne, headed off to college at the tender age of sixteen. She later became a teacher. My brother, Jerry, six years older than I, taught economics at the college level.

  As the baby of the family, I was certainly indulged, but my parents expected me to get straight As. I tried not to disappoint them. In 1961, they paid the tuition for me to attend Sam Houston High School, a public school outside our San Antonio school district. They picked up the modest tab because they viewed the academic program as stronger than the one at the rural public school I was supposed to attend.

  I was a serious student, and loved to read. My favorite teacher and mentor, Roberta Mahan, pushed me to seek leadership roles, encouraging me to run for junior class president. Winning that first election was a breakthrough, teaching me the value of risking failure and giving me a taste for politics.

  By now I was sociable, well liked, and popular, a big fish in a relatively small pond. An energetic debater, I also captained our school team for On the Spot, a local version of College Bowl. Fascinated with current events, government, and politics, I became a devoted reader of Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report, and began dreaming about a career in government and politics—as a Democrat. Though my parents were staunch Republicans, I was a big admirer of John F. Kennedy.

  When I eventually became senior class president, I was designated to deliver my class commencement address. This was a big deal. I worked hard on that speech with Mrs. Mahan, and it was well received. My pride, however, took a bit of a hit that day.

  After my speech, I was sitting onstage next to the superintendent of the San Antonio Independent School District when they announced the scholarship winners.

  “Ken Starr, scholarship to Harding College.”

  Impressed, the superintendent leaned over and said, “Harvard College! That’s spectacular!”

  “No,” I whispered, a bit embarrassed, “Harding College.”