Clinton Deal Is a ‘Sensible Solution,’ Starr Says

Kenneth W. Starr, whose six-year investigation of former President Clinton ranged from Whitewater to Monica S. Lewinsky, said Sunday that the deal sealed by Clinton last week was a fitting end to an “unfortunate era.”

The last-minute agreement between Clinton and Starr’s successor as independent counsel, Robert W. Ray, was “a very reasonable and sensible solution that achieved a very important policy goal for the justice system--and that is that the president did acknowledge his responsibility and his shortcoming as a witness in the system,” Starr said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

On Friday, his last full day in office, Clinton spared himself a possible indictment in the Lewinsky case by acknowledging for the first time that he had made false statements under oath about his relationship with the former White House intern. To end disbarment proceedings against him, Clinton agreed to let his Arkansas law license be suspended for five years and to pay a $25,000 fine.

Ray said Sunday that the deal accomplished its intended goal.

“The president has admitted to wrongdoing,” he told ABC’s “This Week.” “That was what I required in order to exercise my discretion to decline to prosecute.”

Clinton could have ended everything years ago by admitting wrongdoing, Starr said.

“It obviously would have been far better, less expensive, less divisive, if this acknowledgment would have come . . . much earlier, say, in January of 1998,” he said. “But better late than never, and that’s what I think helps bring, properly and reasonably, closure.”

Starr said he gladly would have skipped the whole thing.

“It would have been a happy thing indeed if I had arrived in Little Rock, Ark., now years ago, and found nothing wrong,” he said. “Nothing could have made me happier.”