Former president Bill Clinton offered a awkward but diplomatic answer on Sunday when asked to comment on the death of the ex-federal prosecutor who successfully pushed for his 1999 impeachment trial.
Mr Clinton was speaking to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria during the host’s eponymous weekly programme, Fareed Zakaria GPS, when he was asked about the death of Ken Starr, the Republican ex-judge who investigated Mr Clinton’s decades-old business dealings for years before referring him to be impeached for lying about an extramarital affair in a civil lawsuit deposition.
Starr passed away on 13 September following what his family described as a long illness.
The ex-president replied: “I read the obituary, and I realised that his family loved him, and I think that’s something to be grateful for”.
“When your life is over, that’s all there is to say,” he added.
Mr Clinton’s diplomatic response echoed that of another central player in the drama which led to his becoming the first US president to face trial in the Senate in more than a century.
The former White House intern whose liaisons with the then-president were recounted in salacious detail in Starr’s infamous report to Congress, Monica Lewinsky, took to Twitter to opine on the late prosecutor’s death just hours after it was announced.
“As I’m sure many can understand, my thoughts about Ken Starr bring up complicated feelings,” she wrote. “But of more importance, is that I imagine it’s a painful loss for those who love him”.
