legislate the issue? mr. wheeler: the republican admission all along during my time was this is something congress should decide, and now congress has the opportunity to decide with the congressional review act that passed the senate in a bipartisan way and is now pending in the house, that republicans in the house and the industry will say no, congress should not decide. the fcc the chairman of has the courage of his convictions that what he has america, thenfor it will stand up to a vote in the congress, he ought to pick up the phone, call speaker ryan, and say "schedule it for a vote in the house and let's see what the representatives of the american people said." communicators," tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on

c-span two. now a discussion on special counsel robert mueller and the russia probe. whitewateras former independent counsel ken starr who joined us on "washington journal" for about hour. to do. host: you can watch that full interview today at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p. eastern time. it does not mean questions should not be raised. they should be raised. but i do have a sense of come as

yogi bear a say, déjà vu all over again. host: in your view, was the mueller investigation necessary? rodt: what i do know is rosenstein, who i also know and serve with, is a person of integrity, and i think a judgment was made that under the department of justice regulations, governing the appointment of the special counsel, it was appropriate to do it. if there are issues of wrongdoing at the highest levels of government, there has to be an investigation. for instance, who carries it out? the attorney general or the acting attorney general that makes that judgment, we need to have someone that is independent of the justice department come in for essentially a special assignment. differenceis the between a special investigation and an independent investigator or counsel? guest: the big differences who

appoints, peter. under the independent counsel statute, under which i was operating, i was appointed at the request of the attorney general, now that she requested me, but i was appointed by a three-judge panel called the special provision for the district of columbia. message that congress chose in the immediate wake of water gate. now the special counsel has a different name. it's the same function, appointed by the attorney general. sounds technical. huge difference under our separations of power system. host: but the same function, the same rules, the same power? guest: the same function except in this instance bob mueller or any special counsel has to go to -- i'm just going to say the attorney general. makes it simple. goes to the attorney general to secure approval for an

expansion. right? of the investigation. any major investigative step. i'm going to be now looking at this. i wasn't originally looking at this, but now i'm going to be looking at it. he has to go to rob rosen stine. -- rstos "he" -- bob mueller. host: your investigation started without with a corporation or real estate development called white water. right? guest: much more but that was at the heart and core. i inherited the investigation of a great man named bob fiske. bob was appointed essentially as a special counsel when the independent statute had last. so this interim period. and bob got to little rock and found any number of things that he was looking into. webster hubble's billing. the death of vincent foster, jr., possibly violations of banking laws in the gubetorle

campaign in arkansas in 1990. i was surprised with the breadth and range of his activity. that's what i inherited. the white water land deal was part of it. host: these tend to grow. don't they? these investigations. the president got impeached over something unrelated to all of this. guest: the relationship there -- and we were authorized to conduct that part of the investigation by the attorney general and the special division. so there's this two-step shopping process. so when we brought the information as to what we understood, that might be under way, possible perjury, very serious crimes, we ran, not walked, to the attorney general of the united states janet reno. she looked at it. she sent over the head of the fraud division of the justice

department. he reviewed the evidence. she agreed. janet reno agreed. but we now know is lewinski had to be investigated. she goes to the special division. theygree. so there was a kind of double process under the independent count statute. now it's just the judgment of the attorney general. judge star, does this special ounsel independent counsel statute work? host: as we talk with ken starr crimes of the united states. we go back in time to the grant administration. 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. but i think it works. does it work? yes it does work. it's not pretty but i think it does work. as a mechanism for asshuring 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 wrong doing to be ferretted out? most people would say yes we do. host: you've become an unelected official, however, and basically the second most werful person in washington. guest: i would depiss agree 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 alackty, 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 aufings, 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 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 now that paul man forth is -- 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 rglations. 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 nominate bid the president confirmed by the united states senate ensures hat the will of the president. host: what's it like to depose a president? guest: it is a professional responsibility that you simply say i have a .. j 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 presidentsy 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 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 predent trump is going to meet with robert mueller? guest: only his defense lawyers can make that assessment. host: was it a mistake, do you think, 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 a direction that you don't know including pps charges that you were not forth coming 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. the criminal defense lawyer doesn't have complete confidence in his client's ability to answer truthfully then the wise course is not to. host: judge star, whyou no longer president of baylor? guest: i was fired and then i resigned as chancellor. and it erose out of allegations , violations of title 9 interpersonal violence is the term that the department of education used. so toy i was not fired as chancellor but changing of t guard in light of the report of possible wrongdoing. i was not implicated in the wrong doing 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 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. she's a very fine person. i have great confidence in her. host: what's your take on the current me too 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 -- and 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. the facts carefully, as fair-mindedly as you possibly can and then come to judgment. and so 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 objects of that power, we need transparency. we basically need to treat everyone with human dignity. host: let's hear from the callers. independent line. you're on with judge ken starr. caller: good morning. i wanted to ask you, sir, during the investigation of water gate, 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. mentioned the vince foster investigation. you were involved in that. can you add anything new to that that we didn't hear about before in terms of what were the theories why he committed suicide? i'm not a conspiracy theorist just out of curiosity. i didn't hear much at the time. guest: aptly -- a terrible tragedy because vince foster whom i never met was a very talented and respected level. he gave and you can pull it up a very poignant graduation speech just two months before he took his life. he gave that graduation speech at his alma mater the

university of arkansas law school where he did very, very well and a fine student and lawyer. one of the very poignant things that mr. foster said in that speech w in our profession if se your reputation you've lost everything. we produced a very comprehensive report. it is available publicly. it's over 1 pages. we looked at every dimension of what happened frensically, psychologically, and so forth, anwe did conclude that -- and i'm convinced 100%, not even 99.9% -- that he did take his own life by his own hand using pistol that was in the family overlooking the potomac river. it was a great tragedy. ut 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 but i personally met with her privately at her request and received further information that simply confirmed that vince foster took his own life. host: tweet to you mr. star. w many investigation guest: we had 14 criminal convictions. and 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 from some towns or a hung jury, a divided jury in others. host: north carolina, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. that wanted to say myself and many, many of my friends think that -- and it's pretty obvious, that all these can hes, commissions, -- committees, commissions, what have you, 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

or lack of a better word, that mueller and his minions have any sort of apocalyptic information on donald trump that hasn't already been played out in the press 50 million times? guest: well, thank you. well, i do have a different perspective but first of all i'm behind as we all are the vail 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 course operatives and applicable to bob 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 porousness and that's frequently to be regretted that there is porousness. but that's really up to we've seen by the way a recent indictment just this week of a nior counsel to the senate sngs committee. now, an indictment is an indictment and happily in our country a resumption 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 accomplished a lot including the 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. so we have separation of powers. something i hope we still learn in civics. so the appointment of bob mule bir the attorney general rod

rosen stine acting resolves all constutional issues. it's the power of appointment. that's the key. that the wrong branch appoints someone to carry on a governmental function. it sounds odd but that's our structure. it's the president or his designees who get to do the appointment perhaps subject to senate confirmation. host: where were your offices? guest: right across kitty corner from the justice department. that was our washington, d.c. office. and i inherited that from bob fisk. again, i can't say enough good about bob fisk and all that he did in really laying the ground work. and then in little rock -- little rock is a beautiful city. a great city. we were on the west side. i inherited -- i shouldn't say inherited. i took over peacefully bob fisk's offices on the west side of little rock. two 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 but as soon as then the controversial phase -- not that there wasn't controversy, there certainly was in arkansas. bu 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 with the f.b.i. 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 involvement and

collusion leading right -- if they uncover other nefarious or illegal acts can they investigate that or does that have to be handed off off or do they just forget it? guest: no, they will not forget it or at least i don't think they will. and so what would happen is bob mueller having assessed the information coming to a judgment would then go to rod rosen stine the acting attorney general in this matter, and say here's 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 or united states attorney's office as the case may be. but it's your judgment and not mine. so 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 becam of e part the conversation, part of the public debate. it this is a caption test for wdtn. this is a caption test for wdtn. our tradition. beginning with grant and the so-called whisky ring running

out oft. louis. so as we have been remind bid 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. so 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 tes. 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 instigation.lligence 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 should say 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 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 mtoo 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: t thhe 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 wasirst 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 that different 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 with the great -- bob fisk, there was absolutely 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. thha w we're told. that is within the justice department the

that information, i have every reason to think -- i don't know -- will be evaluated and assessed by the professional men and women of the f.b.i. and the justice department. >> second question by that caller. thanks. should the indictment have waited until after bill clinton left office? that's a very important question. now, under the statute that theness passed, and reauthorize, i was duty bound, other independent counsel is duty bound, is to report to term, is the statutory advise the house of representatives, when let's get just a second, welcome

andaw school, substantial that an impeachable comes to u- 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 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