President Donald Trump’s impeachment team includes Kenneth Starr, the man “who led the Whitewater investigation into then-President Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s.”
Others include former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, former federal prosecutor Robert Ray, member of Trump’s legal team during Mueller’s investigation Jane Raskin, and Alan Dershowitz.
White House Counsel Pat Cipollone will lead the team along with Jay Sekulow. Cipollone also chose his deputies Michael Purpura and Patrick Philbin to work with them.
Monica Lewinsky immediately reacted to the Starr decision.
From The Washington Examiner:
More than two decades ago, the Whitewater case led to the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton for lying under oath about his affair with Lewinsky, who was a White House intern. Starr’s final report was released to the public and was published in a book called The Starr Report: The Findings of Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr on President Clinton and the Lewinsky Affair in 1998.Clinton was impeached by the House over charges related to the cover-up of his with Lewinsky, but was acquitted by the Senate in 1999. Lewinsky has spoken out on a number of occasions about the public shaming she suffered in the aftermath of the incident.
Ray eventually succeeded Starr in the Whitewater inquiry.
Politico has more on the leaders on the team:
Trump’s impeachment legal strategy has taken shape under Cipollone, who replaced Don McGahn as White House counsel in late 2018. The 53-year old longtime corporate litigator worked under Attorney General William Barr during his first stint at the Justice Department in the George H.W. Bush administration. Cipollone entered Trump’s orbit during the 2016 presidential campaign via an introduction from conservative commentator and longtime friend Laura Ingraham and later helped prep the then-GOP nominee for his debates with Hillary Clinton.As White House counsel, Cipollone added about 20 attorneys who have specifically been assigned to oversight issues that Democrats ultimately used to launch their impeachment proceedings.His top associates, Michael Purpura and Patrick Philbin, will also be on the Senate impeachment team. Philbin is a former Cipollone colleague from Kirkland and Ellis who served in senior positions at the George W. Bush Justice Department, at one point even working as a top aide to then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey.Purpura served as a federal prosecutor from the Southern District of New York and later as a George W. Bush White House aide handling oversight issues when Democrats won control of the House and Senate in the 2006 midterms. Purpura had been on the shortlist early on in the Trump administration for a lifetime judicial appointment based in Hawaii. But that nomination never came, and Purpura ultimately left a high-paying private equity job in real estate to come work in the Trump White House.
Dershowitz “will focus on the constitutional arguments against impeachment and against removing the president from office.” He has defended Trump since 2017, but people seem to forget he voted for Clinton. But he also opposed President Bill Clinton’s impeachment. The team said in a statement he basically joined the team because “he believes the issues at stake go to the heart of our enduring Constitution.”
Bondi joined the White House in November. She served as an advisor on impeachment.
Raskin works as a personal attorney for Trump. She “had a lead role in defending Trump in the Mueller probe.”
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