>> do you think it is possible to legislate this issue? allhe republican position along during my term was, this is something congress ought to decide. now when congress has an opportunity to decide, the congressional review act that has passed the senate in a bipartisan way and is now pending in the house, republicans in the house say, oh look.ngress should -- in the chairman of the fcc has the courage of his convictions that what he has done is right stand upca, and will to a vote in the congress, he ought to pick up the phone, call seeker ryan, and say, let's what the representatives and -- of the american people say.

announcer: watch the communicators on c-span2. starr served as the independent counsel for the whitewater investigation. disease,hink i get any but i do get a sense of deja vu all over again. ? was the mother investigation necessary? >> i am in no position to judge

that. know is i judgment was made under the department of justice regulations governing the appointment of the special counsel. it was appropriate to do it. there are issues of wrongdoing at the highest levels of government. it has to be undone investigation. -- an investigation. the attorney general or the acting attorney general makes that decision. we need somebody independence to come in for this special assignment. >> was the difference between a special investigation and an independent investigator or counsel? >> the big differences who appoints. under the independent counsel statute, under which i was operating, i was appointed as --

at the request of the attorney general. i was appointed by a three-judge panel called the special division of the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia. that is the mechanism congress chose in the immediate wake of watergate. now the special counsel have a different name, but it's the same function. it's appointed by the attorney general. sounds technical, huge difference under our separation of power system. >> but same function, same rule, same power? >> same power except in this instance, bob mueller or any special counsel has to go to -- i'm just going to say the attorney general. there's the attorney general to sick ---- goes to the to the attorney general. this.ing to be looking at

i was not originally looking at this. he has to go to rod rosenstein. >> your investation started corporation or a real estate developer called whitewater. >> much more than that, but that was at the heart and court. i inherited the investigation of a man named bob fiske. an official. bob got to little rock and found any number of things he was looking into. webster hubbell, the death of vincent foster junior, possible violations of banking laws. surprised with the range of his activity. that's what i inherited. the whitewater land deal was

part of it. >> these investigations tend to grow, don't they? the prent goimpeached over something unrelated. >> the relationship was -- and we were authorized to conduct that part. by the attorney general and the special division. there is this two-step process. when we brought the in -- the information as to what we understood it might be underway, possible perjury, a very serious , not walk, to the attorney general of the united states. it,said -- she looked at reviewed the evidence, she agreed, what we now know is le winsky had to be investigated.

she went to three judges, they had to agree. independent counsel process. no's just the attorney general. >> the numbers are up on the screen. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. independents. for does this special counsel independent counsel statute work? guest: it's very hard when it comes to investigating the crimes of the united states. we go back in time to the grant administration. ulysses s. grant. we see in each and every instance there's been some sort of question about the legitimacy of the investigation because it becomes very controversial. people line up on one side or the other when the president is being investigated.

it is just the way it is. but i think it works. does it work? yes, i think it does work. it's not pretty but i think it does work as a mechanism for assuring the independence and integrity of the investigation, and then the check we all want honest government. well we really do. do you want honest government? and do you want possible -- possible -- wrongdoing to be ferretted out? most people would say yes we do. host: you've become an unelected official, however, and basically the second most powerful person in washington. >> i would disagree with that. there are nine justices on the supreme court. but there's also the chair of the fed. the secretary of state. so i would debate that one. and i think i would win that debate. but it certainly is an important responsibility and needs to be carried out with as much alacrity, as much speed as you possibly

can. host: but yours was five years. guest: it was. it kept expanding. we got for example the travel office, the f.b.i. files. how did the f.b.i. files of republicans get over to the white house? and we were asked to look at these things. so there is a natural perhaps at times odd evolution of the way the work is in fact expanded. but here's the check. there's not a rogue prosecuter -- prosecutor out looking at anything he or she wants to. there are checks in place. and i think that's the basic civics lesson that got lost under the independent counsel statute and i hope it's not getting lost now. that bob mueller reports to the attorney general of the united states. he is an officer temporarily of the justice department. host: so when you're reading in the papers about the mueller investigation, you see that paul manafort seems to be

investigated quite a bit. is he getting permission to follow that trail? guest: presumptively so. that's the way i read the regulations. obviously i don't know what's happening on the inside. but as i read the regulations under which bob mueller is appointed and operating, yes, he would go to the acting attorney general and say here is the information that we have. you get that second look by the attorney general who we need to be reminded in terms of our system, nominated by the president confirmed by the united states -- senate. host: what's it like to depose a president? guest: it is a professional responsibility that you simply say, i have a job to do and for purposes of this activity he is a witness and so i must carry on that responsibility. so you try to just shield out the fact that he is the

president, other than just making sure that as best you can, to treat the presidency and the person who occupies the oval office with dignity and with respect. host: when you heard the line it depends on what the definition of is, is, did you know that was going to play out in some way? guest: no. i did not. because it's in the give and take of what's happening during a four-hour period. i thought it was an odd answer. but i did not really pause to assess it. and certainly not its public significance. host: was it important to videotape that deposition? guest: it was in terms we need to make sure our grand jurors were able to see it and there was one grand juror who was not going to be able to see it because it was a special setting -- sitting of the grand jury. so we worked out through a very elaborate set of discussions

here's the deal and part of it was videotaping. host: do you think president trump should meet with robert mueller? guest: only his defense lawyers can make that assessment. host: was it a mistake, do you th -- if you were a defense lawyer would you recommend that he meet with robert mueller? guest: i don't know all the facts. it's as simple as that. but out of the recipe book of criminal defense lawyers, you never want your client to be exposed to the kinds of questions that could lead in directions you don't know, including perhaps charges that you were -- that were not forthcoming and so forth. the so-called perjury trap. i think the perjury trap is terribly overemphasized and --

it's a perjury opportunity let's say that and so one has to be very careful. host: judge star, why are you no longer president of baylor? guest: i was fired and then i resigned as chancellor. and it arose out of allegations of violations of title 9, interpersonal violence is the term that the department of education used. so to my -- i was not fired as chancellor, but changing of the guard in light of the report of possible wrongdoing. i was not implicated in the wrongdoing, but i was the captain of the ship. host: do you think it was legitimate, a legitimate firing? guest: i am under an obligation not to criticize those who did certainly have opinions but i -- those who did fire me. i certainly have opinions but i respect the judgment of the board of regents that let's have a fresh start. and they have a new president

with whom i had served at pepperdine. she was dean of the business school when i was dean of the law school and she is a very fine person. i have great confidence in her. host: what's your take on the current #metoo movement? guest: well, it's something that was sort of overdue. and any movement can have its successes. and sometimes i think we need to be sober about -- i mean, serious and cautious about rushing to judgment. in my line of work as a judge here in washington for many years, as well as a law clerk for several years, i learned early on, don't make snap judgments. gather all the facts, assess those facts carefully, as fair-mindedly as you possibly can and then come to judgment. and so in any movement there may very well be excesses but in terms of the fundamental moral relationship and professional relationship people of power, people who may then be the

object of that power, we need transparency. we basically need to treat everyone with human dignity. host: let's hear from the callers. josephine is in w jers. independent line. you're on with judge ken starr. caller: good morning. i wanted to ask you, sir, during the investigation of watergate, you made a comment now in retrospect. i may be misquoting so that's why i'm asking you to clarify. did you or did you not say that hillary clinton did not break any laws? guest: that we did not come to any charges. by the way we're talking about the whitewater investigation. we made a careful assessment of the facts as we understood them and we chose not to go forward. i don't think i said anything beyond that. host: next call from california.

democrats line. caller: you mentioned the vince foster investigation. you were involved in that. can you add anything new to that that we did not hear about before in terms of what were the theories why he committed suicide? what drove him to that? i'm not a conspiracy theorist , just out of curiosity. i didn't hear much at the time. >> a terrible tragedy because met, foster, whom i never was a very talented and respected lawyer. it up,, if you can pull a very poignant graduation speech just two months before he took his life. he gave that graduation speech at his all modern, the university of arkansas law school, where he did very, very

well. he was a fine student and lawyer. one of the very poignant things that mr. foster's at in that speech was in our profession if you lose your reputation you've lost everything. we produced a very comprehensive report. it is available publicly. it's over 100 pages. we looked at every dimension of what happened frantically, psychologically, and so forth, and we did conclude that -- and i'm convinced 100%, not even 99.9% -- that he did take his own life by his own hand using a intol that was in they fort marcy park overlooking the potomac river. it was a great tragedy. but we looked very carefully at -- including, i should say, i had a very confidential interview. we had a more public interview so to speak with his widow lisa foster, but i personally met with her privately at her

request and receive further information that simply confirmed that vince foster took his own life. host: tweet to you mr. star. please tell us how many indictments your investigation of ill clinton produced. guest: we had 14 criminal convictions. the major set of indictments and convictions came -- and the whitewater trial itself -- that was then sitting governor jim guy tucker. james mcdoogle who is deceased. and susan mcdoogle. that was after a very long , almost three-month jury trial in little rock. we also had a number of guilty pleas. there were other indictments including one of susan mcdugele for obstruction of justice and criminal contempt and then of two bankers in a small bank on who owned the small bank outside little rock for banking

violations. those did go to trial and resulted either in acquitals in some counts or a hung jury, a divided jury in others. host: north carolina, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i just wanted to say to the american public listening that myself and many of my friends think that, and it's pretty obvious, that all these committees, commissio, house committees, senate committees, are so porous that any information of any consequence, any consequence, leaks out. do you really think after all this time and millions of dollars spent on this charade, for lack of a better word, that

there -- that robert mueller in his minions have any sort of apocalyptic information on donald trump that has not already been played out in the press 50 million times? i will take my answer off the air. thank you. guest: well, thank you. well, i do have a different perspective, but first of all, i am behind as we all are the veil of ignorance. and it will surprise you that as these dramas unfold, new information does in fact come to light. and that is not in fact made known to the public. first of all, prosecutors operate under grand jury secrecy requirements, and that's of coarse operative and applicable to robert mueller and the prosecutors on his staff. so i surmise or i'm just going to speculate that they know a lot that we do not know and will probably know in the fullness of time. you are right, there is a

miss -- us -- a porous porousness, and that is frequently to be regretted. but we have seen a recent indictment just this week of a senior counsel to the senate intelligence committee area -- committee. now, an indictment is an country weand in our have a presumption of innocence. so we will see. but i wouldn't assume that you know that we the american people know nearly as much as bob mueller and his staff know. host: president trump june 4 tweet, the appointment of the special counsel is totally unconstitutional. despite that we play the game because i unlike the democrats have done nothing wrong. is it unconstitutional? guest: no. i have to respect -- respectfully disagree with the president. and it is not because he is not

a lawyer. he is a very successful business person and obviously has accolished a lot, including winning the presidency. but i don't think anyone would agree with him. but why is that? what's the basis for that? that goes back to the mechanism of the appointment. it seems so technical but who appoints? so just imagine the chief justice of the united states walks out and says, i think we need to have a prosecuter appointed to investigate, and you name it, some official in the executive branch. not within the judicial branch. right? we say where did you get that power? that's one of the beauties of our constitutional structure. power is checked. it's why we have separated powers. separation of powers is something i hope we still learn in civics. so the appointment of bob mueller by the attorney general rod rosenstein acting, resolves

all the constitutional issues. it's the power of appointment. that's the key. that the wrong branch appoints someone to carry on a governmental function sounds odd, but that's our structure. it's the president or his gets do thewho appointment subject to senate confirmation. >> where were your offices when you are the independent counsel? guest: right across from the justice department. that was our washington, d.c. office. and i inherited that from bob fiske. i can't say enough good about bob fit -- bob fiske and all he did in really laying the ground work. and then in little rock -- little rock is a beautiful city. we were on the west side. i inherited -- i shouldn't say inherited. i took over peacefully bob this's offices on the west side of little rock to financial center. and center is spelled with an re.

host: did you have security? guest: not for the first four years. in fact the people of arkansas were terrific. so i guess i had no death threats, that as soon as the controversial phase -- not that there was in controversy, there certainly was in arkansas. but there was controversy with a capital c, in fact all caps controversy, when the monica lewinsky phase broke and almost immediately the u.s. marshall service in collaboration with the fbi constantly surveying death threats and threat assessments came in and said you now have 24 hour security including your family. host: next call from florida. caller: i just wanted to ask what his thoughts were of how far the mueller investigation can go outside of the realm of russian .nvolvements

if they uncover other acts, can they investigate that? off?that have to be handed guest: they will not forget, or at least i don't think ey ll. bob mueller having assessed the information coming to a judgment would then go to rod rosenstein, the acting attorney general, and say here is what i have and this is what i would like authorization to investigate. or, here's what i have and i don't think we should be the ones to investigate it. there's no reason for us to investigate it. but then you want to have the folks in the criminal division for united states attorneys office as the case may be. it will be a collaborative reporting relationship up the chain of command to the attorney general. if i could just add one thing. when i was an independent

counsel, information would come to me, would come to our f.b.i. agents who were on assignment from their regular duties, whether philadelphia or whatever they would have a temporary assignment to little rock. information would come to them. someone comes to me and says hey there's this really crooked corrupt deal that's going on involving a state facility. i won't go into the details of it. you need to look at it. i said, well, thank you. this happened to be a woman. and i will report that as i did to the f.b.i. but i knew immediately that that was not within our realm even remotely. it was a separate kind of concern about public integrity. so i reported that right away to the f.b.i. and i knew -- don't even know what happened with that. but there are mechanisms in place to keep and to check power. power is very important.

so when there were accusations that yours truly was not acting within the province of his authority, that became part of the conversation, part of the public debate. it so comes back it's very important for everyone to understand that there are checks and balances in place in our governmental system. it doesn't mean there's not going to be abuse of power but there are checks and balances just as we learned i hope in civics class. host: as a reagan appointed judge a as solicitor general was it a mistake to appoint a republican to investigate a democrat president? guest: no. in fact that's our tradition. beginning with grant and the so-called whisky ring running out of st. louis. so as we have been remindid ron's recent biography of

general grant, he was honest but he had some real dishonest folks around him. they were a bunch of crooks including in the treasury department. when the scandal broke, general grant said ok this has got to be investigated. we can't do it with our justice department. he personally made the judgment we're going to appoint a former democrat senator from missouri to investigate. ditto then. that's ancient history. spring forward to watergate. the decision was made by the attorney general of the united states serving under richard nixon to name a solicitor general who served under john kennedy and who had served brilliantly. so that was our tradition. but during my tenure, all of a sudden everything got turned totally upside down. he can't investigate because he as republican. now it's a law.

i've been a judge and solicitor general of the united states but all of a sudden the president's partisans are -- i'll just say suddenly it became a bad thing to be a republican to investigate a democratic president and that was our system. host: michigan, republican line. caller: thank you. nice to meet you. my first question involved vince foster but one of your previous caller, you answered it. so i'm going to replace it with i've been listening to you and set me straight. did bob mueller have parameters around what he was supposed to do? and number two, i've been hearing that there had to be some kind of a crime to actually install a special prosecuter. and my second question involves a young man who was found dead

back in 2015-2016 and we've never heard much about it. he was connected with the democratic campaign at the time. i'm just wondering if you know anything about that. guest: thank you. i love the great state of michigan and i'm not running for office. our daughter and son in-law and four grandchildren spend about four weeks up there in that beautiful neck of the woods because we all live in texas. as to the first, as far as we know -- and when you go back to the appointment, the memorandum or order of rod rosen stine back in may of last year, 13 months ago, we see what the original job was. the original job was to pick up on what then director james comey had testified to and his

saying here is what we're looking into in terms of possible russian connections to the campaign and that is what he is to do. so it began with that. so some have said well that's a counter intelligence investigation. and i don't know. maybe it was solely counter intelligence. but i just want to say we don't know what we don't know. and he is such an experienced person. by the way, i sayshould i served with him in the whitewater investigation. host: rod rosen stine? guest: rod rosen stine. so rod rosen stibe is a card-carrying republican but he checks his politics at the door. he is a person of rep tude and total integrity. doesn't mean i agree with every judgment but i don't have the basis for assessing the judgment because i don't have all the facts i'm not going to jump to any conclusions.

but the control mechanism again that i think should provide assurance to the american people is that a duly appointed by the president of the united states official is ultimately in charge. host: did you read about yourself during your five years as independent counsel? guest: i did. host: we all did. i was wondering. guest: what an unfriendly question. i read some. but what i encourage my colleagues to do was shut it out. it's self-discipline. and i would violate my own sermon from time to time. we had to be aware of what was being said out in the third or fourth estate, whatever estate you're in and so we would be aware of it but i didn't have a public communications officer, public information officer until right toward the end when it just became utterly

impossible with monica beach having been established outside the courthouse just a few blocks from where we are right now. so i said -- our audience, and this is way i would put it. our audience, my dear friends, my dear colleagues, are the juries and the judges. the grand jurors and the pet t jurors we call them. and the judges. especially the chief judges who control the grand jury. when i say control, who supervise the grand jury. that's our audience. so we didn't do too well out in the public domain but i want to add within the media there were lots of truth seekers, not just echo chambered types just parrotting whatever was being said out on the courthouse steps or what have you or a communications office by a -- from a partisan perspective. they really wanted to know the truth. and sometimes we would get calls from the media saying do

you know something? and they would bring something to our attention. and i don't mean to be unpleasant but now that we're seeing the me-too movement, president clinton's interview and so forth recently, one of the people who is now being talked about a lot is broadric from arkansas. as far as i know, her allegations were uncovered by nb news. not by us. host: by lisa meyers. guest: good memory. and her producer. and we knew then to be -- they were truth seekers. they were out seeking the truth as opposed to simply echoing whatever anyone might be saying. host: have you had any contact with the clintons or monica

lewinsky since 1999? host: not with the clintons. i've been asked several times would you be willing to meet with the president? i said any time, anywhere. that has not happened. and then i ran in to monica totally by happen stance on christmas eve. that was the first time -- host: this past year? guest: yeah. i was on my way to church we were leaving one restaurant she was coming in to that restaurant with her family. so it was brief encounter. host: did you talk? guest: briefly. host: larry, new york. caller: judge star thanks for your service. i have two quick questions. number one why did you replace bob fisk? was he fired? number two, did you have the option after when you reported to congress to suggest that they hold off on impeachment and that bill clinton simply be

tried after he left office? guest: great question. i was chosen to replace bob fisk because bob had been appointed by attorney general janet reno. so it's sort of like the system is now. then congress on june 30, 1994, radio authorized that provided for th diffent mechanism of appointment namely by the special division, three-judge court. so according to the order that the three-judge court issues f issued, replacing yours truly he great -- bob fisk, there was absolely nothing that was critical of bob fisk. nothing whatsoever in the order. it was simply the structural anomaly so to speak that he had been appointed by the attorney general who roorpted to the president who was under investigation. so it was sort of made a clean -- the clean break.

the second question? guest: i apologize i didn't write it down. caller: ost: we apologize. debbie. while my neighbor's -- clinten was secretary of state that her husband bill went to russia and got $500,000. she says that's unlegal and the .o.j. knew all about it. so what do you say? guest: again you're going to hear me say this a fair amount. i don't know all the facts so i'm not going to jump to judgment. but here's a control mechanism that i think we all need to be

mindful of because i think it's going to happen this week. that's what we're told. that is within the justice department there is an office called the office of inspecter general. and i have a feeling your audience knows full well that michael horowitz with the inspecter general of the justice department has a great reputation for total honesty, total integrity. and he is going to be coming out with a report we don't know the scope of the report and so forth. and within the f.b.i. is the office of professional responsibility. our audience will likely recall that the office of professional responsibility did a report did a report with respect to andrew mccain and also as i recall made a criminal referral. so even within mother justice, main justice as i call it and within the f.b.i. which is part of the justice department, there are these checks. so let's just say that there

may have been something questionable, something illegal about the transaction you just mentioned. that information i have every reason to think -- i don't know but i have every reason to think would be evaluated and assessed by the professional men and women of the f.b.i. and the justice department. host: second question by that caller. guest: larry, great. host: should the indictment have waited until after bill left office? guest: that's a very important question. under the statute that congress passed and then reauthorized, i was duty bound or any independent counsel is duty bound to report to advise is the statutory term, advise the house of representatives when -- let's get legal just for a second. welcome to law school -- substantial and credible information. substantial and credible

information comes to us that -- and impeachable offense may have been committed. now, we're not to go into constitutional law and say ok what is high crimes and treason and so forth. an impeachable offense may have been committed. in our view, which we think is solidly based in law, is that the crimes of perjury -- the potential crimes of perjury, intimidation of witnesses, obstruction of justice all found in the nature of the kind of offenses that congress might very well believe, constitute impeachable offenses. it becomes a judgment for the house of representatives. now, we should know that at the end of his tenure president clinton on his pen ultimate day in office did enter into an agreement with my successer bob

ray, robert ray, to resolve the issues in terms of his responsibility under the criminal lawsthe united states. ost: georgia, democrat's line. ller: i have a main question but i'm very hard of hearing so i depend on the closed captions, which is always 30 seconds behind what people are saying. this is not the main question. i understand about two years o mr. star, judge star, that you had regretted some of the things that you had done in the investigation of the clintons. i wonder did i hear right? is that true? but that's not the main question.

the main question is mrs. mcdugele, i understand, that white water -- that the clintons invested's something like $53,000 in what w supposed to be a development of probably for tourism. my husband and i did the same here in north georgia, invest it into an area that had no roads just jeep trails and nothing had been laid out. we got three times our money back. in this case, i understand that the clintons lost their money but that susan mcdugele was put in prison most of the time in isolation not able to see her other even until she would swear to what you or the republicans wanted her to say about whitewater. host: we're going to get an answer to both of those

questions. guest: let me turn to susan mcdugele first. susan mcdoogle was convicted after a very long trial by a federal jury of felonies. those feloniesro out of her stewardship with respect to madison guaranteed savings and loan that she and her husband, james mcdoogle who was also convicted, owned and ran. so that's just the facts. now, let the record show she was pardoned by president clinton on his waning days in so the blotter is clean. but she was convicted. now, we then asked her, she was subpoenaed to testify before the little rock grand jury. these are her fellow citizens nd she refused to do that.

-- directed her ordered her to testify truthfully before the grand jury. and she declined to do that. o she was both civilly found guilty of contempt. that is to say all you have to do is go in and testify and you can be released. but at the same time she was serving her criminal sentence imposed by the late judge george howard who was an appointee of president carter. so politics aside, in terms of the conditions of confinement this is the first i've heard of that. i doubt that but i had no control over the conditions of confinement given my function as a lawyer and independent counsel. with respect to the regrets, i certainly said and continue to

say that i regret that the entire investigation came to us. i wish there had been another alternative because i had already been serving for several years at little rock as well as then peter the washington, d.c. venued prosecutions. the white house travel office files, the f.b.i. files. whether there was political interference by senior officials of the treasury department with what the resolution -- there's a whole host of vincent foster. so we had a very full docket and i thought that we were coming to the end of the arkansas phase. not at the end but coming toward the end of the arkansas phase of the investigation. so i regret that there wasn't enough bob fisk ready sort of calling out the reserves that the attorney general could say, ok, special division you got five people who are ready to go

so that we don't lose any time. so i wish it had been given, it being the lewinski phase of the investigation, to another independent counsel but it just wasn't practical. or at least i think that was the attorney general's assessment. host: john in tennessee. ller: i've got a couple of questions. the reason we voted for donald trump because we're tired of what sort of, like what's going on right now. do you think hillary broke the law? and the people -- and and i could see they're mad because they lost to trump but the people that's against him but everyone else like the ohio guy

the people that -- guest: i think we got the point in tennessee. thank you. guest: and i understand your political point. and this happening really around the western democracies, that the people not the yiltse alone said we want a totally different call it disrupter as our prime minister or what have you,. with respect to hillary and breaking the phones and so forth, i find that troubling and i would hope that anything of that nature without in fact be investigated. but as you probably gather, i don't jump to conclusions until i know all the facts. so let's get all the facts. we do have mechanisms in place to ensure there is honest government. i think one of the things

that's happened, the american people are rightly, as i say, they're skeptical of power and that's good. we need to be vigilant about liberty. but i'm not saying that john is cynical butedo just say we want honest representatives in government. we want honest presidents. we want honest senators honest judges and so forth. that's sort of bedrock. we can disagree on policy. what's the right approach to immigration? we can all have our own views but we want basic honesty, noncorruption and so forth. so that also means not violating the law. so if there were violations in the law we need mechanisms to bring people to account. and the message i would like to deliver is those mechanisms exist and i would just urge our udience not to suck m to sin innism. be vigilant friends of liberty

but don't be cynical. host: i had a tweet up and lost it. did bill clinton ever threaten to fire you? guest: not that i know of. but of course janet reno did have the authority to remove me for good cause and i never gave her good cause. host: what was your relationship with her? guest: it was extremely good the first four years and then it was not so gentle during the ewinski phase. host: how valuable was linda trip? guest: she was extremely helpful on vince foster. there's these different connections, six degrees of separation. so we knew linda trip. she was the cleef confidential assistant to vince and she is the last person we know in the

white house complex who saw him before he left the complex and headed across the river. in terms of she brought us the information based upon her friendship with monica lewinsky and then she had the tape recordings of the conversations withthos conversations suggested to us the possibility not only of monica being involved in rule of law issues but also t president of the united states. ost: good morning. caller: what continues to surprise you about the investigations and also what advice would you give to mueller right now? oiveragetsdz thank you. i try not to be baffled but i in ciate that description

your question. but i try to be patient and just say ok i don't know everything but let's just take it a step at a time, be orderly, be methodical. just call it the scientific method. so as i say i try nbeo baffled. i would say curious. but i'm not baffled by my own investigation but i'm curious as i think we all are. host: advice to robert mueller. guest: carry on as quickly as you can and try as best you can to steel yourself against all of the noise in the media. just get your job done as honestly as you can. host: steve twitter. guest: i believe that a sitting president can be indicted but that is not the policy of the

justice department. my own view is that no one is above the law. that includes the president of the united states. in the clinton versus jones civil litigation involving the allegations of paula jones, that the then governor of arkansas had engaged in sexual hairsment of really rassdzer grotesque way, that is the allegation, never proven. the case was never tried. it was eventually settled. but a unanimous supreme court concluded that the president has to respond to civil litigation, does not even get a postponement until the time he is through with his office. that he leaves office. that's the basis for my view. however, the justice department official position embodied in the office of legal counsel opinion from 2000 is a sitting president cannot be indicted. and bob mueller i believe has

to follow that justice department policy. host: kathleen, colorado. caller: hi. you mentionedt there are mechanisms to bring people to account and you also said that the american public should not be cynical. i say that where many of us are cynical about our judicial system based on reality we watched you investigate a president who testified under oath about lying, having to do with an extra marital affair. yet we did not witness bush and cheney and that administration held accountable for the w lies in the run-up to the invasion of iraq did not watch bush and cheney be held accountable for possibly being deeply involved. with watch obama and holder

dismiss the ees pannage upcoming trial some years ago. so we hear people like yourself and many others of our leaders say things like no one is above the law. yet we witness reality about very serious issues never -- and people not held to account in upper level positions. host: i think we got the point. ken starr. guest: well, i am going to push back because the very fact that you're able in a very articulate way to say you have concerns about the lies, wmd, dimension ot every of our public life should result in criminal charges. the key is bring facts to light and then hold people accountable in other ways. not every political judgment that may have some legal implication is necessarily a

crime. my own view and people disagree with this, welcome to democracy, is that we overcriminalize things in the united states. i wish there were less reliance on the criminal laws and me on democratic checks such as oversight hearings and so forth. my own view but i don't know the facts that rod rosen stine knew. it would have been better for us at this stage in 2018 to know definitively was there collusion between the russians, ussian interests, and the i still don't know that. we can say there's no evidence or there's lots of evidence but we don't know the views of robert mueller. that is not a criticism of bob mueller. it is, however, just a necessary fact call it an opportunity cost. the expense, when we go the criminal function.

rather than an oversight function by congress. host: texas. republican. good morning. aller: good morning. with the rept ming up from the ig this week or next week, i would assume is going to create quite a comparison between the clinton investigation hillary clinton d the trump investigation or mueller investigation. one of the things that vexed me about the hillary investigation more than anything, i think was the use of immunity. my understanding that five or six clinton people were given immunity. the one that probably vexed me the most was botting a lano. the it guy. it's my understanding that he s a relatively high up in it

management at the state department and the -- he went to work for her privately and installed was responsible for installing h.r. server at home. my experience -- guest: host: where are you going with that? we're running out of time. guest: knows the rules about how the security associated with it and whether government rules or corporate rules is going to know it better than the guy whose are going to have to implement it. and there's no way a management or executive in that position even if they wererules or corpoe would know it better than the guys who have to implement it. orre's no way that a manager executive in that position, even if they were to do something that they were asked to do that was not appropriate, there's no way to -- host: we're going to have to leave it there. any comment? waco, so weve in

are sort of neighbors. immunity as a tool that prosecutors use, and like any tool, it can be abused, or the result of a miscalculated judgment. i would say that i'm concerned with -- but i think the kind of things that reallyraising go to honest government are, in fact, eating reviewed and analyzed by professional people of integrity. i don't know that, but be patient. let's wait and see. the ballgame is not over. right now in it is the seventh inning. think ofid mrs. start the five years you were an independent? guest: she was supportive. the hard part became when we had round-the-clock security at home, and our daughter, who came out fine, had security in

college. host: do you think your reputation took a hit? guest: big-time. lots of torpedoes. --ad been known as a log i a law guy. -- andk times praised my then two weeks later called for me to resign. the effect of a presidential's anyunications apparatus, president, any white house will be able to muster at least 45% to 50% of the american people around the flag and say, here's what i think, and people are going to tend to follow. host: after baylor, you remained at waco? what are you doing? we have seven grandchildren, so that's fun. i'm working a lot on religious liberty issues. i'm working with the justice department and immigration

judges there it there are several issues around the world in terms of religious liberty. i've been involved in the training of -- who will be here early next week, practicing law, and i'm also doing a fair amount of writing. i show up at baylor every chance i get. host: announcer: c-span's washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. tomorrow, the political week ahead in washington. general forr afghanistan reconstruction reports his findings on america's effort to stabilize afghanistan. be sure to watch c-span's

washington journal live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on monday morning. join the discussion. thursday, rusan president vladimir putin appears on a national televi program to answer questions from russian viewers. this portion is one hour. this year we have a lot more questions about the relation between russia and the west. not only about some alarming feelings but also the feeling up disappointment. i will quote one of the messages received. everything. how should we behave when no one even turns to listen to our arguments and we can clearly see that no one is going to listen to us. >>