star about his 1990s investigation of bill and hillary clinton. he talked about the book in this year's annapolis book festival.

[inaudible conversations] . >> good afternoon. welcome back if you are just joining us welcome to the annapolis book festival. i am a foreign service officer i am the m proud father of three including a son who is a junior here at the key school and i am delighted to join this conversation with our next author kenneth starr who has graciously come back this year and a memoir of his time meeting the 19 nineties investigation into the monica lewinsky matter during the clinton administration.

in the center of the public eye as ken has, he needs no introduction but i will give you a quick snapshot of the distinguished career graduate of george washington brown university the us solicitor general, dean of pepperdine law school and president of baylor and a very distinguished private attorney with firms including washington a d.c. and was also independence. even though we have a very bright crowd with the annapolis area, ich a bet if i asked or said the three names

i betow nobody knows who they are. but if i say bob mueller and archibald cox i am talking about a very select group of prosecutors and independent councils appointed to look into a high level high visibility cases involving the executive branch. there are some differences and distinctions between each of those titles and we will get into that later but start off taking us back to 1994 and in private practice enjoying a very nice time and then you get a call and then at that

time headed up to the whitewater investigation. >> so why do you want to go to the dc area. >> i had no idea. and then in arkansas may be six months to investigate but on that fateful afternoon i had taken the oath of office quietly that it is an assignment to go get it done.

and this will foreshadow bob mother appointed by the attorney general as special counsel. the titles have switch but he was an appointee of attorney general janet reno. veryry distinguished lawyer that e i actually worked with him and not even practicing together. sos and then to be here for a longau time. and then in this deal in arkansas.

how big was your team? fbi agents and who were the key actors on your team? depending on the circumstances we are assigned to specific matters the fraudulent billingsli of webster hubbell and those who entered a guilty free with the united states fraud is really brat bad but one is the united states government so there are matters under an investigation but and as a law person is you

were kind enough to mention. and while nobody said bob needs to go and we need a replacement with that special division or the indent pencil on - - counsel it was called through the justice department and he was appointed. so "the new york times" praised my appointment and two weeks later it called on me to resign. now in those two weeks i hadn't't done much. in fact, i had done nothing atat all. but the political view changed and the fact of the spin cycle

inside the propaganda machine i'm nots being political so then this comes back that i see some people who might to be as old as i am and remember watergate? as a real truth seeker. sam had been a very successful da - - da in georgetown and i knew him well. he comes to my office and says it is because of your republican credentials. and i am not a republican which is very well known. almost as a jacket balance for

what that was not expected to do but as we gear up for the triali trial, it turns out there was serious fraud progress we gear up and then james and some of you may recall that they were the sole owners but then the madison guarantee was hillary's client which is raising a series of questions and whose funding was used inappropriately for the whitewater land deal. there was fraud with the

entire transaction as we look ahead but like an appraiser inflated the price into his credit you see what is unfolding now and a scandal involving college admissions. it is an ugly situation but they already have guilty pleas. that is what we were experiencing. >> it really is a complex. >> very prominent offshoots that at that time was a a

former law partner of but there were some questions. >> so can you talk about that case quick. >> yes. bob had undertaken and examination of the circumstances of the death of vincent foster was a very successful lawyer, and i'll law partner of hillary and with humble. theee three of them were very close t and i'm pleased to say that there is no suggestion that vince foster was somehow involved in the fraudulent

transactions. but within seven months coming to washington d.c. this very successful prominent w d lawyer that is happily married with a family took his own life. so it was concluded it was a suicide but there were so many conspiracy theories i have decided we need to take a second look just to make sure we have done absolutely everything to examine the questions that were being raised because there were suggestions vince foster was the victim of a homicide and his body was moved so they were conspiratorial theories. so yes, we took a very elaborate look hiring experts in the country now we proved

beyond a shadow of a doubt that he in fact, did commit suicide but what i raise in the book is why he did he commit suicide? why was he depressed? and that it is wide i speculate about in the book because they do think he was a person of conscience and the aspects of the former partners relationship with the billing records that showing hillary had performed services, not necessarily fraud but had performed or participated in legal advice aspects it did not prove she was aware and

that is the key distinction. so now why would the rose law firm records go missing? they said they were stolen. this is not proper you don't take billing records at a law firm. of course, they were eventually found in the residence of the white house. . >> contrary to some opinions investigations like you had run and was referred to as a arshing expedition a hoax or a witch hunt by character, definition or the justice department they are anything but. and to take anything under your purview in your case when

the monica lewinsky matter came into your purview, initially i would like toe know how that came to your attention. and ultimately you had to get permission from janet reno to move forward. talk about that. >> so that last fact was underappreciated by the american people that the investigation of the president for possibles crimes such as perjury and obstruction of justice was expressly authorized by the attorney general of the united states. but this came to be because of a connection with vince foster junior. the last person who we know saw him alive in the white house was linda tripp. she calls our office januar

january 1988. not so fast. she says a young woman, monica lewinsky, working alongside me p here at the pentagon at the public affairs office has made me aware there is a relationship with the president but most relevantly she is asking me to commit perjury because she is committed perjury herself and at the end of that phone call on sunday night i was away at an american bar association meeting in colorado. she said you know, me. i am linda tripp the witness in the vince c foster investigation.

so we took steps. 's were criticized which goes with the territory but we verified what linda had told u us, the surreptitious to live on - - telephone recordings we were reviewing those and the fbi was looking at well. but we had the famous episode at the ritz carlo monash carlton which was criticized but then vindicated in legislation we confirmed realtime that this was under way that she was encouraging to file injurious a lot of talk and can societal concerns and rightly so bad essentially

this was a civil rights case brought up by jones at that time which was an employee. and she alleged there has been very horrible kind of event that was unsettling to her. she brought a federal court action and bill clinton for his conduct in a hotel in little rock it was in connection with that where all this is underway with false affidavits and false statements and encouraging others to lie. >> obviously intense scrutiny and battling back and forth politically at this time. but the one thing that your

book brings out poignantly that you have to have thick skin to go into these kinds of jobs is very difficult to end well you will make half the people upset. but i wonder the toll this takesr, personally and your families your wife is quoted at one one.during whitewater to say this is a nightmare which will not end. and a lot of people who sent off to college. and then to get there and marshall service was credible and has 24 hour protection how

do you deal with something like that?r. . >> happily i cannot say enough for the united states marshals service is absolutely superb but they had to doo the job because i was appointed by the court under the statute that existed treated as if i were a judge. i was not paid as well but they did a wonderful job. with around-the-clock security at the house so the command post outside the house that we called the brady bunch house which the press already knew

we had them outside most days. and the press was fine. in that whimsical story of when scalia a couple years ago to the church and the cathedral, and so i save my piece and one says to me i camped outside your house. but i said no. i saved a lot of money in a made a down payment on a house thanks to you. [laughter] so the similar pressures the family was strong and

surrounded for suffering involving michael moore whether he is an adversary the filmmaker and then had a young a small world. and then. >> even to say get off virchow you have children hear you are

scaring everybody laugh us pic you have colorful things to say back. . >> those are whimsical but looking back just to suggest the controversy but here is the very good news. onwe came through it as a country. we just come through as we did with the ulysses s grant so how do we in a free society keep the president and those around them honest silly --dash it is of the but this

was a horrible episode to have to do but in terms of but no one is above the law but then to still admire john kennedy. [laughter]

but we have a song. q4 reason to in a me but to hear his philosophy and learn about the baseline of the united states of america so this is not the time that when you n are in a conservative the

liberal has no head. [laughter] but then that is personally revealing but for the rights, record, and. >> i want to bring some things together.

>> incarcerated in their share of the us population with no convictions for for but given your perspective how can we fix the system to make it more fair but to be quite sensitive and skeptical about proposed reforms this is the minimum tamount of shifts in the grave amount they have been to the

one - - disproportionate on the africa to be but i have on the with a wonderful man who provee the but then the civilized society it cares about those who are incarcerated and have opportunities for rehabilitation.y, -- not heavily way but an supportive way of the innocence project and the innocence project, if you go

on the website, you will see case after case of serious convictions for the most heinous kinds of crimes and guess what? to defend that was actually innocent. something happens to youou what happened to me at pepperdine. i attended a program at ucla of, and justice issues at the ucla law school and i am chatting with a woman who was on death row, death row in california, for the homicide of a family member. she was actually innocent, exonerated by dna and one thing i am deeply concerned about is what i hear about informally is the self-assurance of prosecutors. we know we got right person et cetera we use every tool to bring a person down and g, kid,

you should know that criticism because not directed at you. almost prosecutor who's been in the business for a while so we have to be skeptical about the exercise of power but in particular that which, to me, is the functional equivalent of the unforgivable sin which is what we call a brady violation, when a prosecutor knowingly sits on exculpatory evidence and that prosecutor is duty-bound and asa a matter of constitutional right on the part of the defendant to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence and i am fearful that there is a growing sense that i don't have an empirical study to back this up but it's conversational anecdotal that we need to be really firm when we find a brady prosecution and we need to drum

the amount of the prosecutorial courts. be skeptical and exercise power and power crops. >> thank you but we do have a long way to go but is agreed to hear about the innocence project in things you mentioned. there are clear similarities between your work and that of our molars which recently concluded but there are stark differences in terms of mandate and reporting response abilities and you wrote a piece in the atlantic last month about this what are some of the key differences between your work and bob fuller? >> one is the method of appointment after the 21 year experiment in the independent counsel in renoep congress sougt not to reauthorize independent counsel law and i applauded that. we in the reagan administration when it started as chief of staff to attorney general ejected to the special

prosecutor provisions as raising serious policy questions but in our view it was also an unconstitutional invasion of the powers of the president. you say wait a second. it was okay to fire archibald cox was appointed by the attorney general? know it was not but it was an obstruction of justice but look at what happened. acting attorney general bob work amply within 11 days pointed a good baylor man i might save and carried on the investigation and the rest is all history. while the untidy the old system worked and more study of history and history is a great teacher and it's not an earring that a great teacher would tell us that .-ellipsis as grant fired special counsel of his time but the medication went on and that harry truman fired the attorney

general who fired the special prosecutor and early 1950s but the investigation went on in th. investigation proverbial will go on. it's one of the reasons beware of reforms in the unintended consequence is but now to restore the authority within the constitutional structure of article two of the regulations under which bob fuller was appointed the attorney general makes that -- but rosenstein made this appointment as the acting attorney general and jeff sessions recused himself.al the other thing i would say is so huge right now and at this very moment is the reporting requirement. i was obligated under the statute to send my findings to the congress of the united states and in fact, i was an arm or tool of the congress of the

united states no longer but the regulations which have been in effect for 20 years under which bob mueller was reported in which was appointed under which he's been operating completely scaled back the reporting obligations. i have been saying in public arenas look at the law and the attorney general of the united states was under criticism, i think much of it decided, is to follow the regulations and the regulations call for bob mueller to exactly do what he has done. bob mueller is an honorable person was now provided to the attorney general with a keyword confidentialor report. under the same regulations and this has the effect of law the attorney general's obligation is to notify congress o that he did on march 22. he set forth the principal

conclusions that that is what regulations call for. not to release the report r. t that is the law. now, that having been said both in his confirmation hearings and then in his letters on march 22, march 24 he has reiterated thatl in more recent letter this past friday, one week ago, attorney general said i want to err on the side of transparency so there will be by mid whenever a release of the report but will have, we think, with actions. why would you leave anything out? leave out those things which i will use two examples that i need to use the because the nature ofee the starr report but injury information as a matter of law must come out and buying a court order we can get into that but what would that look like you secondly national security information all people

you got to protect national security and the third category is of privacy and the report may very well have information that is not going to serve the public information function that could be embarrassing to more individuals. that was the concern with the starr report. that's why were seen this episodes from now on we go with no terminator calling for the careful treatment of the starr report and needs to be sensitive information in there and we should not just send it out so he voted along members of the house not to release the starr report and we encourage this kind of careful look because especially the nature of that report with very intimate

details of which show the president in our view is computed perjury and instruction of justice but the nature and conduct was such that it was very -- what should i say? five it in nature. i think what bill barr is doing now is that which the relations call on him to do in the relations essentially that's their face against the openness and transparency of the regime and independent counsel statute. >> you were quoted saying recently that you think bob b mueller probably be made the hard call on the obstruction of justice claim. why do you think he did not connect. >> i don't have a good theory and i've heard various theories but i think it was his response abilities to do so. from what i have seen and i'm

not one of the president's lawyers but that is frequently and publicly and use the example of the firing of james comey it may have been wise or unwise but i do not see how as a matter of law that can constitute obstruction of justice. there are other things in the public domain but i just don't see it as a law and i think i managed to convince on this particular point some prominent members of the media and is nott my persuasive powers but if any it is the rulings of the support of the united states which is very nearly construed construction of justice. we can go into that maybe we will into the questionte and answer the why did he not do it? alan dershowitz had a very interesting theory and i'm happy to pass that along and hold alan in high regard in a great civil libertarian and his very intimate is simply a very is that bob did not want to overrule his staff. that bob had a less capacious view because of it structure of

justice. one person's theory we shall s see. >> we have about ten minutes left and i knowef there are a lt of people itching to ask your opinions and thoughts on things. i want to leave time for audience questions so if you have a question that you would like to ask, please come to the mic set up on the side of the room. >> i have a question about>> the privacy criteriaut for reaction. so, what are the parameters for that and what kind of checks and balances exist on regulating that? those are fundamentally judgment calls for a bill barr

to say i think it would simply not serve the public interest for the following three sentences to be included because of embarrassment factors, unjustified notoriety and in terms of checks and balances i think we will see that play out because all we have is the beginning of a pretty lively conversation between the house of representatives and the justice department. i envision the time will come and there will be as we call a in camera review. let's have the chairman and senior staff people look at the full set of information, no matter how embarrassing it might be, that is notot done infrequently and we shall see what the protocol is but protocol will emerge from that

and there would not be judicial review. >> and was that consideration in your report in terms of relevant whether a private matter was essential to include or not? >> we had a very and i describe this in the book lively and continuing conversation about the details which we set forth the nature of the relationship deeply private relationship. what we determined and these were professional prosecutors guiding me when i made the decision and we have to prove the president committed perjury and obstruction of justice beyond any shadow of a doubt in the facts are really not disputed. i so wish we look back that this could've been avoided and as [inaudible] famously said when i make a mistake, it's a cute.

recognition, admission, apology, settling civil action in januarn before the supreme court of the united states ruled unanimously nine-nothing not one of those five-four or ideological divides that president clinton did not enjoy immunity from basing the paula jones sexual harassment civil rights action that would have been very good for the nation and for the first family and for the lawsuit to have been settled. well over 95% of civil cases in the united states settle in this turn out to be -- well it was eventually settled but only after the country had been through this unfortunate proce process. c >> i came here today to get a reevaluation of the things i remember that went on during our

investigation into the president and i have to say the president's behavior has -- i have a that with new eyes in light of the #metoo movement and some of the assumptions we were making and prejudices for lack of knowledge or whatever were not present so in coming here today you are speaking and you turn out not quite to be the monster we were pretraining has. >> i'm sorry about that and i used to be a sunday school teacher and little league coach. >> i was wondering -- mac but thank you, i think. [laughter] >> i was wondering if you tell smus which of the criticisms abt you that were going on at the time did you think might have been justified or things that you would do differently? >> so many criticisms that were justified. >> which things --

>> multipart questions. >> , a question. one ofg the things that now i lost my train of thought. >> i'm sorry. >> i apologize. i intervened and i should not have. i think that their criticism that i would level and myself is that i took on the monica lewinsky investigation to begin with. i think not that it did not have to be investigated but that is the key. sometimes i say that and then it misinterpreted old you don't thank you need to be a basket. of course any but the president of the united states is committing perjury in a section of justice i'm sorry but it's not russia. you will need to investigate it in the context of such that you should have -- please, it's essential harassment, the price action and everyone has his or her right to a day in court and to everyone's honest evidence is

a simple as that and it really is. some things in life are comp gated but any rule of law system that is not. i think i would except for the for taking onci the add-on which is the travel office firings that hillary engineered and i think i can be fairly faulted for taking on the fbi files scandal and the fbi files of republicans miraculously mysteriously, i should say, finding their wayf into the whie house and utterly inappropriate but the good news isat we determined that there was sufficient evidence in either of those matters to bring criminal charges. call it an exoneration and wefi were able to do it efficiently but i think what happened is the investigation went on and took longer and we did not get cooperation and this was huge and i don't know anything i could've done to stop this but

once we had that convictions in little rock this was a breakthrough in the sitting governor had been committed a serious fraud and so is jim and susan mcdougall. this is now aea breakthrough moment. joe mcdougall began to cooperate and sad and i describe this in the book that the president of the united states committed perjury during the trial. you can accept that or reject that but this is serious stuff. we cannot get at times the information we needed from jim or jim would say you have to asu susan mcdougall. susan mcdougall declined to cooperate and famously went into civil contempt and we tried her to criminal contempt and was acquitted on charges and a hung rgjury on other charges but i wish, to this day, that this is a regret not so much criticism

but a regret that once we had a white water convictions let's get this done thing over with and everyone cooperate let's let the chips fall where they may. this includes bindings that might be very unflattering about the united states and the first lady of the united states. during the lewinsky phase of the investigation we were met with executive privilege that were completely on meritorious and we were met with other efforts to obstruct us -- sound familiar? to obstruct our investigation such as the creation of a fanciful privilege with no warning whatsoever in the law protective function privilege which is essentially created a praetorian guard that would not be able to provide evidence so imagine the president of the united states is only with a foreign power? imagine. [laughter]

it might very well be secret service agents might have been around from a meeting or conversation was had anythingsa that might be relevant and yes, it would be to get we lost week after week, month after month and so those are regrets and some self-criticism is always in order but everything we did we try to do consistent with the rule of law ash efficiently as e could and the rest one of the reasons i wrote this book is because i felt so much of the r story and never really been told and never seen the light of day, do you mind if i hold that up there? thank you. this is a very distinguished foreign service officer holding up this book. both criticisms and regrets. great question. >> my question as a man who

devoted his life to the law and the rule of law what is your opinion of the vast amounts of money that is involved in politics now and also citizens united? >> yes, i applaud citizens united so i will happily be in the minority in assisting this group because fervent believer in freedom of speech and just as "the new york times" requires money to produce "the new york times" and cnn and so forth so to make our voices heard. i was very impressed with the fact that so many candidates are depending on small contributions and i think it is simply not the case as a matter of imperial goals reality of the most heavily financed candidates always win. it just does not happen fornt te corporate contributions will control but it is simply i don't

think demonstrable empirically. i know it seems to be the case but i think the facts rebut that. that having been said it's an enormous amount of money in politics is wasted such as on high paid consultants losing about half my audience here. [laughter] this is the washington dc area. i know a lot of the consultants are extremely bright people but it's extremely pricey part and the guide to candidate frequently and to their calls and so forth wasted money. i rather like i think it's one of the credits president obama as candidate obama definitely not the establishment candidate and look what he did. small contributions carry the day. such a healthy system and worry about regulations could so much relation and up backfiring or not working and that coupled

with a fervent belief in the first amendment. also, i would just say another example if you have the burn you been given money to senator sanders for these now many years and he is not getting corporate support, is he? at least that i know of. example after example where we havee a very healing process but i know that goes against the grain of thinking of a lot of m thoughtful people who do worry about money and politics. i say go after corruption and there it is. corruption. quid pro quos. look at the nextro administratin and the sale of ambassadorship and that was quid pro quo for russia. >> i'm afraid that is all we have time for today. i want to thank everyone in the audience think especially

kenneth starr for coming back to the annapolis book festival in the book is contempt: thank you all very much. that afternoon. [applause] [inaudible conversations] , what. >> this week you're watching the tv so you can see what programs are available every weekend, nowhere else can you find nonfiction books on politics, national security, economic, health and medicine.

enjoy book tv now and every weekend on c-span2. >> wednesday at 10:00 a.m. eastern attorney general william barr testifies before the senate judiciary committee on the report and on thursday he will testify before the house judiciary committee, light on c-span3. c-span .org and listen on the free c-span radio app. >> saturday at 2:30 p.m. eastern book tv has light garbage from the museum for the historians kenneth ackerman and david stewart talking about c-span new book, the presidents. noted historians rank the best and worst chief executives. saturday at 2:30 p.m. eastern on c-span2 from the museum. >> before we move on to the supreme court can i just say topics are what you really need

to know and here we go. write them down. foundation, federalism, public opinion, participation, political parties, interest groups, campaign and elections, congress, president and those are the big ten. the entire test covers those ten topics. >> are you a student preparing for the next placement of the united states government and politics exam? don't miss your chance to be part of washington journal's annual grant for the exam program on saturday may 4 at 9:00 a.m. eastern for a live discussion with high school government teachers. >> our question is about [inaudible] and why it is significant. >> logrolling is something our students struggle with, too. this concept that the idea is if you get a big bill passed a lot of times it helps to have quid pro quo and if you add this writer for this project or

volunteer earmarks then if you add that you mark to get more support in both. >> watch washington journal graham for the exam on saturday may 4 at 9:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> now on c-span2's book tv or television for serious readers. next on book tvs "after words" alabama democratic senator doug jones recounts his prosecution of two former kkk members involved in the 1963 birmingham church bombing that killed four black girls. interviewed by author and journalist diane. >> senator jones, hello.