Trump sides with Clinton investigator on impeachment inquiry
President Trump agrees with Ken Starr’s comments on the FOX Business' WSJ at Large, about the impeachment inquiry against him. He fired off a tweet on Sunday asking, "Do you think what you've seen rises to the level of impeachment?" Ken Starr, Clinton Special Prosecutor. "I don't!"
The president’s tweet over the weekend was in response to Starr’s interview with Baker, where he explained the difference between his work as Independent Counsel in the 1990’s, when he brought charges that led to the House impeaching President Bill Clinton, and the current impeachment effort.
“I don’t think under these circumstances that there is any -- others will have a different view -- definable crime,” he argued. “And especially a pattern of felonies -- a pattern of felonies and obstruction of justice during the Clinton years.”
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Clinton was acquitted by the Senate. And Starr feels there’s no need for this controversy to go that far.
“It’s ultimately a judgment call for the House of Representatives,” he pointed out. “But given what we’ve seen, I think the president did not exercise good judgment in that call. I don’t think he’s exercising good judgment now."
"But guess what, that’s why we have electoral contests," he added. "That’s why we have nominations and debates, and finally in 13 months we go to the polls and that’s the referendum on the president.”
Starr said we should use history as our guide.
“We learned that in the Clinton years; wait for the referendum on the president, don’t go to impeachment,” he believes.
FILE - In this Dec. 19, 1998, file photo, President Bill Clinton
(AP Photo/Doug Mills, File)
That doesn’t mean Starr thinks President Trump is above the law.
“Oh, no – no. He can’t be under the Department of Justice guidelines, Gerry, be indicted while he’s in office,” he said. “But President Clinton faced that. And that’s why on his very last full day in office President Clinton entered, as it were, a settlement agreement with the prosecutor, with the independent counsel…he settled the case, to avoid what? Criminal indictment. So the president of the United States, as soon as he leaves office -- and the clause in the Constitution is absolutely clear on this -- cannot escape the justice system just because of impeachment.”
But in the end, Starr thinks this impeachment effort doesn’t make sense.
“So this just to me, my judgment call -- others are obviously having different judgment calls -- this just does not rise to the level of treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors,” he explains.