What Ken Starr's new law students will learn
The Malibu Times reports that Ken Starr has been appointed Dean of Pepperdine Law School.
Apparently law students at Pepperdine will learn from the top that it is all right to investigate consensual sex when no one complains, tape friends' conversations without permission, force legal-age young people to testify about their friends' consenting sexual lives, make mothers testify against their daughters when no crime is committed, force Secret Service not to be secret, subpoena records of books bought at bookstores about legal subjects, secretly subpoena home phone records of innocent witnesses and force them to testify in front of grand juries about private conversations with friends, write pornographic reports you know will be used fully in the press, and claim you are doing all this for the good of the nation despite virtually all precedents protecting privacy and First Amendment rights.
They will also learn to build perjury cases by using stings and coercive techniques to generate defensive statements by someone protecting the privacy of a personal physical relationship where no one expressed harm.
Let's hope they don't use these lessons either as special prosecutors or even in traditional legal procedures.
And let's hope they don't decide to spend $60 million of federal funds over six years in proving someone has a private consenting relationship with no complaining party.
As one of the more than 100 Clinton staff and friends whom Ken Starr interrupted our lives by insisting we testify in front of his grand jury investigating the president's consensual relationship, I can personally testify that his distorted view of the law is not one which should ever be disseminated to students as a model of what is right.
Robert S. Weiner
The
recently appointed dean of the Pepperdine School of Law talks about
what he
learned from his experiences.
By David Wallace/Special to The Malibu Times
Time can change perceptions, at least when it comes
to Kenneth
Starr, the former Whitewater independent counsel.
Interviewed recently on the telephone, the high
baritone voice
of Pepperdine's newly appointed law school dean, who became a lightning
rod for
the emotions raised during the Clinton impeachment process, sounded
warm,
ebullient, and, well, friendly.
Has Judge Starr changed? (His title derives from a
1983-89
stint as a U.S. Court of Appeals judge). Or is he just being
politically
correct?
When asked if Whitewater and its aftermath changed
him, his
response sounded both sincere and politically correct. "It was sobering
and sad to go through that and for the nation to go through that time,"
he
said. "I learned a lot, especially the need to be very dutiful and
conscious of doing one's utmost with complete integrity and candor."
Nevertheless, judging from the reaction to his
appointment,
Starr remains divisive.
In announcing his appointment, Pepperdine President
Andrew
Benton said, "Ken Starr has served with grace and with distinction
throughout his career-in the classroom of America's finest law schools,
clerking for a Supreme Court Justice, as a partner at two of the
nation's most
prestigious law firms, serving as a federal judge, presenting cases as
our
nation's Solicitor General, and illuminating the law as a scholar and
author
... His career has exemplified the highest ethical standards and
unqualified
personal and professional integrity. He will serve as a role model not
only for
our students, but for the entire Pepperdine community."
Yet Robert
Weiner, head of a
Washington, D.C. political consultancy firm who served for six and a
half years
as communications director for Clinton's "drug czars," passionately
disagrees. He and his wife were subpoenaed by Starr's grand jury,
apparently
seeking to find efforts to discredit Linda Tripp, a suburban Maryland
neighbor
of the couple.
Weiner suggests in a letter to the editor in The
Malibu Times
that, under Starr's leadership, "... law students at Pepperdine will
learn
from the top that it is all right to investigate consensual sex when no
one
complains, tape friends' conversations without permission ... secretly
subpoena
home phone records of innocent witnesses and force them to testify in
front of
grand juries about private conversations with friends ... and claim you
are
doing all this for the good of the nation despite virtually all
precedents
protecting privacy and First Amendment rights."
Retired Judge Ralph Erickson, president of the
Malibu
Democratic Club, said, "Until he took over the Whitewater/Bill Clinton
sex
investigation, Mr. Starr had an impressive record. Unfortunately, he
went to
extremes and demonstrated a prurient interest in matters that were
really not
relevant to President Clinton's constitutional responsibilities."
Starr is aware
of the
controversial nature of his appointment, and, Weiner asserts, he has
long
sought to rehabilitate his reputation. When asked his
feelings about
being surrounded in Malibu by many Clinton supporters, Starr ducked.
"Malibu is a diverse community," he said, and then quickly changed
the subject. "It is a homecoming in a way for Alice (his wife of 34
years)
and me. We'll be returning to Southern California where I began law
practice
[with Los Angeles' Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher firm] 30 years ago this
fall."
Although Starr said, "I love the classroom," he
will, in fact, spend less time teaching at Pepperdine than
evangelizing.
"My prime focus will be to spread the word," he said. "In my
judgment, the school, although young, is exceptionally fine. I plan to
help
make it even better. I've had a growing relationship with Pepperdine
(since
1991 he has lectured occasionally at the school). And, over time, I've
developed friendships within the Pepperdine community."
He will not be giving up his partnership in the
Kirkland and
Ellis law firm, where he is, according to Salon.com, a "million dollar
a
year lawyer." His salary at Pepperdine is unknown, but similar
positions
are compensated in the low six-figures. Starr said he would keep his
present
Washington clients and take on new ones "to the extent that is
practicable."
He has long juggled teaching and law practice. "I
see
them as complimentary," he said. "Teaching constitutional law (his
specialty, which he is presently teaching part-time at Chapman College
in
Orange) is helpful in focusing on Supreme Court matters where I work."
As
Solicitor General (1989-93), Starr argued 25 cases before the court,
the most
famous of which was the 1990's first "right-to-die" case involving a
Missouri woman named Nancy Beth Cruzan. "It was very difficult and very
sensitive," he recalled. "All of us in the Solicitor General's office
has to struggle with the sensitivity of the issue and the anguish of
the
family."
Starr's responsibilities begin on Aug. 1, and he
hopes to be
settled in Malibu well before that time. "We haven't begun looking for
a
house," he said, and "would prefer something near the campus.
"There are various options," Starr added when asked
if the house was part of his arrangement with the school, as is often
the case.
The couple's three children will not be coming to Malibu; the eldest,
Randy,
works for a commercial real estate firm in New York; the middle child,
Carolyn,
is married and teaches elementary school in Walnut Creek, Calif., and
the
youngest, Cynthia, is a freshman at Vanderbilt University.