Ken Starr, the independent counsel who in the 1990s investigated former President Bill Clinton and his extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, believes a sitting president can be indicted.
“Yes, but the Justice Department has a different view and, as you know, has had a different view for almost half a century,” Starr told MSNBC when asked whether Trump could be charged by special counsel Robert Mueller with the “right evidence.”
“Yes” I think a sitting President can be indicted:
Ken Starr says he still agrees that with the right evidence Trump could be indicted: pic.twitter.com/5Y3gJoPn4Y
— TheBeat w/Ari Melber (@TheBeatWithAri) December 19, 2018
Starr went on to describe impeachment as “hell,” saying it may be more difficult to instigate proceedings since the statute governing an independent counsel differs from special counsels.
His comments contradict the 1973 policy of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which stipulates that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted or indicted, a position adopted during former President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal. The policy was then restated following the Clinton administration’s Lewinsky scandal through a DOJ memo issued in 2000.
In the wide-ranging interview, Starr said Trump Organization contact with Russia over a real estate deal in Moscow could create legal problems for the president, but argued it was probably too distant from the 2016 campaign. He said it bothered him that Trump may have lied about his affairs with women, including porn star Stormy Daniels. Starr also had a strong reaction to the president calling Michael Cohen, his former lawyer, a “rat” for cooperating with Mueller’s office.
“Unwise, uncalled for, extraordinarily unseemly, not a crime,” Starr said of Trump’s rhetoric.
