Ken Starr says he has no regrets about the Clinton investigation

Twenty years after President Bill Clinton's impeachment, Ken Starr says he has no regrets.

As a special prosecutor, Starr pursued Clinton and helped uncover his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinksy. He also accused Clinton of lying about the affair to a grand jury. Starr's report to Congress led to just the second impeachment of a president ever in U.S. history.

But does Starr regret putting Lewinsky, then just 22 years old, through the trauma of it all?

“Of course not. Bless her heart, she decided her own course of action,” Starr told VICE News. “The travail that she has gone through is all attributed to her decision not to cooperate.” Starr believes Lewinsky got bad advice from her family lawyer, the late William Ginsberg.

Time has mellowed Starr's assessment of Clinton, who he called “a person of genuine compassion,” though he was “extremely exploitative” toward those around him.

But even now, he's unsparing in his criticism of Hillary Clinton.

“I don't like her as a person. Once again, she has considerable gifts. She's extremely smart,” Starr said. “But I don't think she's a good person. I think Bill Clinton is a good person who's a flawed person.”

Among the investigators and lawyers working on Starr’s staff at the time was Brett Kavanaugh, recently confirmed by the Senate to a seat on the Supreme Court after a bitter fight spurred by allegations of sexual assault against him. Starr recalled him fondly.

“He was like a son to me,” he said.

This segment originally aired December 19, 2018, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.