Ken Starr, the independent counsel who led an investigation into former President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, says President Trump has a “moral obligation” to sit down with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team as part of the federal Russia inquiry.
“I think there may be a moral obligation, frankly, because he is the president of the United States,” Starr said Sunday during an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“Unless he takes very decisive action, such as directing the firing of the special counsel, and there has been no suggestion to my knowledge that that is in the offing at all,” he added.
Starr, however, recommended Trump’s personal attorneys exercise caution before advising the president to grant federal investigators a voluntary interview.
[Rudy Giuliani: ‘Leaning toward not’ letting Trump sit with Mueller]
He told CBS that Trump “clearly has the authority to direct the firing [of Mueller], if not a direct firing himself.”
“I don’t think it’s obstruction of justice and and I disagree with those who seem to find obstruction of justice in almost anything that the president has done,” Starr said.
“But it certainly would be, I think, a political firefight of the highest order because you have people in both parties saying, ‘This is an authorized investigation. Let it run its course,'” he added.
Starr looked into the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky scandals that plagued the Clinton administration, writing the Starr Report in 1998 alleging Clinton lied about an extramarital affair with the former White House intern.
