Ken Starr spent the 90s and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer {dollars} investigating an actual property deal that turned up nothing earlier than pivoting to criminalizing an affair between consenting adults. To be clear, Invoice Clinton’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky raised the kind of critical energy imbalance points that HR departments exist to stop, however the Starr investigation wasn’t designed to spark a nuanced dialog about sexual harassment, it was an effort to translate quasi-puritanical ethical panic into low cost political factors.
Apparently, the ethical scold of the Clinton period didn’t have the identical dangle ups when a convicted baby intercourse offender got here calling.
Emails included within the DOJs newest Esptein recordsdata dump present Starr — whereas serving as president of Baylor College — personally corresponded with and hosted Jeffrey Epstein on the Baylor campus. In 2012. 4 years after Epstein had already pleaded responsible to soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution.
I’m shocked… SHOCKED… that the person who worked with Brett Kavanaugh to prosecute Invoice Clinton would exhibit such ethical flexibility.
Lest anybody tries to persuade themselves that Starr won’t have recognized about Epstein’s 2008 baby prostitution plea — or the much more horrific contemporaneous allegations that had been buried by Epstein’s Non-Prosecution Settlement — do not forget that Ken Starr represented Epstein in that deal. He didn’t simply know concerning the information of the cost Epstein would plea to, however every thing concerning the case. All of the allegations that the profession prosecutor on the case saved begging her supervisors, particularly future Trump Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, to think about:
Julie Ok. Brown, the journalist who did essentially the most to carry Epstein’s crimes to mild, reported in Perversion of Justice, that Starr was the “strongest pressure” behind Epstein’s 2008 plea deal, main a “scorched-earth” authorized marketing campaign to maintain Epstein out of federal jail. Epstein in the end took a yr of county jail with 12-hour every day work launch.
Zealously representing a felony defendant doesn’t require being their buddy. However Starr was calling Epstein his pal and brother years after the very fact. Whereas at Baylor, Starr organized for Epstein to return to Waco and rolled out the pink carpet. Starr signed off his emails to Epstein with “hugs” and “love,” as a result of nothing says “applicable skilled boundaries” fairly like sending mash notes to a registered intercourse offender. Starr expressed curiosity in visiting Epstein in New York and Florida and the 2 chatted about present occasions like outdated school buddies catching up.
In 2016, after Starr was ousted from Baylor over the sexual assault cover-up — oh, proper! Bear in mind how Starr’s tenure as Baylor’s president ended after it got here out that his workplace appeared the opposite approach amidst a series of sexual assault claims? Claims that the college didn’t tackle as a result of the soccer staff was nationally related? In response to the Baylor Lariat, Starr apparently complained to Epstein a few Texas Month-to-month article detailing the scandal, calling it an “assault” on the “turbo-charged management” of soccer coach Artwork Briles.
This continued correspondence wasn’t authorized work. Attorneys don’t need to sustain with former purchasers socially. And when your work revealed that these purchasers credibly ran a baby intercourse ring, you undoubtedly don’t need to hold them on the Christmas card record.
Starr’s entry to extra proof about Epstein’s 2008 plea makes his correspondence extra disturbing than the emails involving different legal professionals, however the identical miserable query dominates over all of Epstein’s steady of lawyer pen friends: didn’t anybody ever hassle to ask why a man with a baby prostitution conviction wished to be their finest pal?
Epstein was a groomer and a part of that course of concerned cultivating relationships with the wealthy and highly effective. He constructed a defend of legitimacy by affiliation and all of his lawyer buddies turned bricks in that wall. Epstein introduced credentialed, respectable folks into his orbit so folks may level to his dinner companions and ask themselves “nicely, would all these vital folks hang around with a predator?” The reply, clearly, was sure — however most people naively thought it wasn’t.
And look, folks can deserve second-chances. However legal professionals are professionally anticipated to train some wholesome skepticism. Somebody who served their time for a drunken bar combat 10 years in the past most likely isn’t utilizing their relationship with a lawyer as a part of ongoing exploitation. Somebody responsible of sexually exploiting kids ought to elevate some pink flags. It’s not a lot that these legal professionals responded to Epstein’s emails, it’s that they appeared to take action with reckless credulity.
For Starr — who knew again in 2008 that the federal government had purpose to accuse Epstein of operating a “cult-like” group — it requires gobsmacking ranges of obliviousness to not take a second to ask if perhaps you’ve change into the mark when you’re sending a intercourse offender “hugs” and “love.”
Or perhaps it was simply cynicism. As we noted when Starr died in 2022, this was a man who dragged the nation by scandal for bare political acquire. A man who abdicated his position in defending Baylor college students to keep up a profitable soccer program. Why would anybody count on any kind of ethical pause when it got here to a captivating wealthy man with loads of pals who simply occurred to site visitors kids?
Ken Starr made a profession out of arguing that character counts and that non-public conduct displays upon public health. It’s a disgrace he by no means took his personal recommendation.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Regulation and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Be happy to email any ideas, questions, or feedback. Observe him on Twitter or Bluesky in the event you’re involved in legislation, politics, and a wholesome dose of school sports activities information. Joe additionally serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
