Contempt; A Memoir of the Clinton Investigation

New York: Sentinel [An Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC], 2018. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Joyce Naltchayan (Jacket photograph). xiv, 338 pages. Illustrations. Sources. Index. Inscribed on the title page by the author. Inscription reads For my dear friends Dan & Missy--With admiration and affection--Ken Starr. Kenneth Winston Starr (July 21, 1946 - September 13, 2022) was an American lawyer and judge who as independent counsel authored the Starr Report, which served as the basis of the impeachment of Bill Clinton. He headed an investigation of members of the Clinton administration, known as the Whitewater controversy, from 1994 to 1998. Starr previously served as a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1983 to 1989 and as the U.S. solicitor general from 1989 to 1993 during the presidency of George H. W. Bush. Starr received the most public attention for his tenure as independent counsel while Bill Clinton was U.S. president. Starr was initially appointed to investigate the suicide of deputy White House counsel Vince Foster and the Whitewater real estate investments of Clinton. The three-judge panel charged with administering the Ethics in Government Act later expanded the inquiry into numerous areas including suspected perjury about Clinton's sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky. After more than four years of investigation, Starr filed the Starr Report, which alleged that Clinton lied about the existence of the affair during a sworn deposition. The allegation led to the impeachment of Clinton and the five-year suspension of Clinton's Arkansas law license. Starr was later both the president and the chancellor of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, from June 2010 until May/June 2016. Twenty years after the Starr Report and the Clinton impeachment, former special prosecutor Ken Starr finally shares his definitive account of one of the most divisive periods in American history. You could fill a library with books about the scandals of the Clinton administration, which eventually led to President Clinton's impeachment by the House of Representatives. Bill and Hillary Clinton have told their version of events, as have various journalists and participants. Whenever liberals recall those years, they usually depict independent counsel Ken Starr as an out-of-control, politically driven prosecutor. But as a New York Times columnist asked in 2017, "What if Ken Starr was right?" What if the popular media in the 1990s completely misunderstood Starr's motives, his tactics, and his ultimate goal: to ensure that no one, especially not the president of the United States, is above the law? Starr -- the man at the eye of the hurricane -- has kept his unique perspective to himself for two full decades. In this long-awaited memoir, he finally sheds light on everything he couldn't tell us during the Clinton years, even in his carefully detailed "Starr Report" of September 1998. Contempt puts you, the reader, into the shoes of Starr and his team as they tackle the many scandals of that era, from Whitewater to Vince Foster's death to Travelgate to Monica Lewinsky. Starr explains in vivid detail how all those scandals shared a common thread: the Clintons' contempt for our system of justice. This book proves that Bill and Hillary Clinton weren't victims of a so-called "vast right-wing conspiracy." They played fast and loose with the law and abused their powers and privileges. Today the office of the American presidency is in crisis, and Starr's insights are more relevant now than ever.