Ken Starr, the independent counsel who in the 1990s investigated former President Bill Clinton and his extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky, said Saturday acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker could shape special counsel Robert Mueller’s federal Russia investigation if he so chooses.
“He can influence major decisions, major steps,” Starr said during an interview on Fox News, referring to the Trump ally who is temporarily heading the Justice Department at a crucial time for the Mueller probe. “Now, that’s not self-defining, that’s a judgment call, but he cannot, under the regulations, interfere with the independence of the day-to-day operations.”
Whitaker, for example, could refocus Mueller’s line of inquiry if the special counsel’s team of investigators started looking into President Trump’s business dealings long before he announced his candidacy for the White House, Starr said.
“He will need to provide, in the fullness of time, an explanation to Congress as to why he made that decision, but he does have that authority,” Starr said, again of Whitaker.
Whitaker, who was appointed this month by the Trump administration to replace fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has been slammed by Democratic and Republican lawmakers for past statements he made as a private citizen criticizing Mueller and his work.
Starr on Saturday also dismissed concerns about federal agency investigations into donations made in 2018 to Whitaker’s failed 2014 Senate campaign while he was still serving as Sessions’ chief of staff at DOJ. The Office of Special Counsel, the Office of Government Ethics, and DOJ’s Ethics Office are examining the payments after receiving complaints from external watchdog group, American Oversight.
“What will likely happen, and I have been through this sort of thing, I served as chief of staff to Attorney General [William French] Smith during the Reagan years, is he will simply have to pay this back, but unless there’s any showing of intent, which I seriously doubt, this will be cleaned up,” said Starr. “Call it a bureaucratic snafu.”
