--- title: Bill Clinton: Kenneth Starr Praises Him as 'Gifted' description: The man whose investigation of former President Bill Clinton led to his impeachment has now praised him, calling him a "gifted" politician canonical: https://time.com/4346207/kenneth-starr-bill-clinton-investigation/ author: Katie Reilly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-05-24T14:45:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:46:08.696Z article:section: Politics og:title: Kenneth Starr Praises Bill Clinton as 'the Most Gifted Politician' of His Generation og:description: The former Whitewater investigator's comments comes as Donald Trump ramps up attacks on Bill Clinton's legacy og:url: https://time.com/4346207/kenneth-starr-bill-clinton-investigation/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt102ed36ab14a8575/6988949d8e060167ef466051/kenneth-starr1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: Texas A&M v Baylor og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Kenneth Starr Praises Bill Clinton as 'the Most Gifted Politician' of His Generation twitter:description: The former Whitewater investigator's comments comes as Donald Trump ramps up attacks on Bill Clinton's legacy twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt102ed36ab14a8575/6988949d8e060167ef466051/kenneth-starr1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Kenneth Starr Praises Bill Clinton as 'the Most Gifted Politician' of His Generation > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly May 24, 2016 2:45 PM UTC  Baylor President Ken Starr (right) looks on as the Baylor Bears host the Texas A&M Aggies on December 9, 2014 at the Ferrell Center in Waco, Texas. Baylor President Ken Starr (right) looks on as the Baylor Bears host the Texas A&M Aggies on December 9, 2014 at the Ferrell Center in Waco, Texas.Cooper Neill/Getty Images  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly May 24, 2016 2:45 PM UTC The man whose investigation of former President Bill Clinton led to his impeachment is now[ praising him instead](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/us/politics/ken-starr-impeachment-bill-clinton.html?%5Fr=0), calling him “the most gifted politician of the baby boomer generation.” In comments [first reported Tuesday](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/us/politics/ken-starr-impeachment-bill-clinton.html?%5Fr=0) by the New York _Times_, former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr praised Clinton as “genuine” last week, just as presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has [begun to draw more attention](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/05/24/trumps-flip-flop-on-whether-the-bill-clinton-sex-scandals-are-important/) to Clinton’s impeachment and sexual transgressions of the 1990s as part of an attack on likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. “His genuine empathy for human beings is absolutely clear,” Starr said of Bill Clinton at a May 16 panel discussion on the presidency at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. “It is powerful, it is palpable and the folks of Arkansas really understood that about him—that he genuinely cared. The ‘I feel your pain’ is absolutely genuine.” **Read more:** [Leave Bill Clinton’s Sex Life Alone, Says Arkansas Gov Who Helped Impeach Him](http://time.com/4178009/arkansas-governor-asa-hutchinson-bill-clinton/) Starr said, “there are certain tragic dimensions which we all lament,” expressing some regret for what he called “the unpleasantness” brought up by his investigation, which looked into the Whitewater scandal, the death of White House deputy counsel Vince Foster, the lawsuit filed against Bill Clinton by Paula Jones and his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Starr did not mention Trump by name, but he also warned about “the transnational emergence of almost radical populism, deep anger, a sense of dislocation” and said he is concerned by party division, the _Times_ reported. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4346207/kenneth-starr-bill-clinton-investigation/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4346207/kenneth-starr-bill-clinton-investigation/"},"headline":"Kenneth Starr Praises Bill Clinton as 'the Most Gifted Politician' of His Generation","datePublished":"2016-05-24T14:45:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:46:08.696Z","description":"The former Whitewater investigator's comments comes as Donald Trump ramps up attacks on Bill Clinton's legacy","url":"https://time.com/4346207/kenneth-starr-bill-clinton-investigation/","keywords":["Hillary Clinton","2016 Election","Bill Clinton"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt102ed36ab14a8575/6988949d8e060167ef466051/kenneth-starr1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Katie Reilly","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt102ed36ab14a8575/6988949d8e060167ef466051/kenneth-starr1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Texas A&M v Baylor","caption":"Texas A&M v Baylor","creditText":"Cooper Neill/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4346207/kenneth-starr-bill-clinton-investigation/","name":"Kenneth Starr Praises Bill Clinton as 'the Most Gifted Politician' of His Generation"}}]}] ```