Dan Abrams Confronts Ken Starr on ‘Hypocritical’ Impeachment Roles

Mediaite founder and ABC News chief legal analyst Dan Abrams confronted Republican attorney Ken Starr over his very different roles in two very different presidential impeachment trials on Monday’s episode of the Dan Abrams Show.

“Let me ask you about impeachment,” Abrams said, reminding Starr of his position that the country was entering an age of impeachment. “Many pointed to the fact that the last impeachment was driven by your report. And so it did seem hypocritical, ironic, absurd, I don’t know what the word is, that you were there talking about how like war, impeachment is hell, it divides the country like nothing else, and yet you had been driving that force for President Clinton.”

“I would call it ironic,” Starr said, “but I hope you won’t go beyond ironic, because I don’t think it’s fair to go beyond ironic.”

Moments later, after some more back-and-forth over Starr’s actions relating to both Clinton’s and Trump’s (first) impeachment, Abrams said that someone can believe what Clinton did then was wrong and worthy of impeachment, while also questioning why Starr was now arguing that impeachment is divisive.

“Part of your argument [in the Trump impeachment] was focused on this question of the broader divisiveness of impeachment,” Abrams said. “I think I’m going to go further than ironic, and call it hypocritical.”

“Well, that’s – welcome to our sweet land of liberty, where you can not only have that opinion, but you can even try to cancel that opinion,” Starr said.

“No, I’m not trying to cancel,” Abrams responded. “Just confronting you with it, and allowing you to respond.”

Starr defended his remarks in the Trump impeachment by repeating what he has said before, about being in an “age of impeachment,” due to the special counsel statute, and that he would have preferred censure to impeachment.

Starr led the investigation into then-President Bill Clinton that resulted in an impeachment trial in 1999; Clinton was ultimately acquitted. In 2020, Starr represented former President Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial, over whether Trump’s “perfect phone call” to Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump appeared to have asked Zelenksy to investigate Hunter Biden in exchange for congressionally-approved aid to the country; Trump, too, was acquitted.

Starr’s defense of Trump didn’t end with the first impeachment trial. After the 2020 presidential election, Starr supported the Trump-fueled lie about widespread voter fraud. After the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol – which would provide the basis for Trump’s second impeachment trial and which Starr, naturally, also opposed – Starr criticized then-President-elect Joe Biden, saying his “political rhetoric” following the attack was “adding fuel to the fire, including stoking some old embers.”

You can listen above, via SiriusXM.