Former independent counsel during the Clinton administration Ken Starr changed his tune big time Friday and said Democrats shouldn’t pursue impeachment against President Donald Trump because “it’s so bad for the country.”
Starr was all in on impeachment for former President Bill Clinton in 1998. What a difference a party makes. Starr said on Fox News: “For the sake of the country, fulminate, don’t go forward with impeachment. It’s so bad for the country.”
“The American people want stability,” he added.
Starr insisted Trump hasn’t broken the law, while he said Clinton was guilty of perjury (concerning his relationship with Monica Lewinsky) and obstruction of justice. The House voted to impeach Clinton in 1998, but he was acquitted five weeks later in the Senate’s impeachment trial.
Special counsel Robert Mueller detailed ten instances of possible obstruction of justice by Trump in his report. “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” Mueller wrote.
“Multiple acts by the President .. were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations, including the Russian-interference and obstruction investigations,” the report states.
Starr conceded that Trump’s “instincts are very aggressive; he knows how to fire people and he fires people. But guess what: He may have come to the brink but he didn’t walk across that red line,” he added.
Starr said Trump “showed wisdom in the end” but can sometimes be his “own worst enemy.”
Mueller, however, determined that Trump’s efforts to derail the investigation were foiled not by the president’s “wisdom,” but by staffers. “The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surround the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests,” Mueller wrote.
One other major difference when Starr finished his report on Clinton: It was released in full directly to the public.
Check out Starr’s spin in the video up top.