Editor’s note: In February 1997, Ken Starr stunned the political world by announcing he was stepping down as independent counsel investigating President Bill Clinton to take a job as dean of Pepperdine University’s law school. In a barrage of criticism, Starr backtracked and announced he had changed his mind. He later took the job in 2004 after completing his investigation and issuing what came to be known as “The Starr Report.”

In an excerpt from a book released last week, one day after officials announced Starr’s appointment as Baylor University’s next president, author Ken Gormley writes about that moment in Starr’s investigation.

If one could trace on graph paper the trajectory of the independent counsel investigation headed by Ken Starr, one would certainly mark his abrupt nonretirement in February 1997 as a crucial turning point. Until that turnabout, his tenure as independent counsel had earned relatively high marks, at least among neutral observers who made a point of watching and judging special prosecutors.

Subsequent events would allow Starr’s critics to portray his entire operation as an investigation run amok. Yet, until his botched Pepperdine decision . . . there were scant facts to bear that out. He was deferential to the president far more than some on his staff would have liked. Although he plodded along, he was still doing little more than carrying out the investigation begun by Robert Fiske (the investigation’s first independent counsel).

As of this juncture, Ken Starr was not even a darling of the right wing. He endured a heap of criticism from the far right when he filed his report on the Vince Foster suicide and refused to validate the conspiracy theories that had been spun by those who remained convinced Foster had been murdered. One right-wing newsletter . . . declaring: “Starr can now kiss goodbye his widely-reported, widely-supported dream of being appointed to the Supreme Court by a Republican president.”

Every night, when Ken Starr returned to his home on a quiet cul-de-sac . . . his mailbox was stuffed with postcards and letters from groups accusing him of participating in a “cover-up” in the murder of Vince Foster. Even Richard Mellon Scaife, the conservative multimillionaire whose foundations helped to finance Pepperdine University, where Starr still aspired to move when this flap died down, took potshots at Starr for his perceived lack of fortitude.

Scaife . . . later said that Starr was “unproductive” and “wasn’t bright enough,” both in political terms and as an investigator. “I’ve never met Ken Starr,” stated Scaife to correct a misperception. “At that time, I had no idea that he was trying to become the dean of the law school.”

As Scaife told John F. Kennedy Jr., for a story in George magazine shortly before JFK Jr.’s death: “Maybe Ken Starr’s a mole working for the Democrats, because he didn’t get much accomplished in this investigation.”

Scaife now added: “There [were] a lot of funny things going on. I still don’t know what happened to Vince Foster, and I don’t think we’ve ever had a clear answer on that.”

Nothing in the historical record would suggest that Ken Starr was extreme or over the top during the early stages of his tenure as independent counsel. Indeed, he was receiving ample criticism from the Republican party’s far-right wing for his timidity and ineffectiveness. That is, until he started shifting the focus of the investigation, in the spring of 1997, in a slightly new direction.

Shortly after Starr’s aborted attempt to leave his post, Bob Woodward and Sue Schmidt of the Washington Post reported that Starr’s prosecutors were beginning to question Arkansas state troopers on the subject of Bill Clinton and “women.”

Excerpted from “The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr” by Ken Gormley (Copyright 2010 by Ken Gormley). Excerpted by permission of Crown Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

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