Difference is striking

On a recent visit to Arkansas, Kenneth Starr questioned Robert Mueller’s including a section on obstruction of justice in his report on Russian involvement in Trump’s election. That took a lot of nerve.

Two decades ago, Starr was tasked with looking into the affair known as Whitewater in which the Clintons got sucked into a bad real estate deal and lost money. The New York Times had blown it into a scandal based on a sole source who suffered from bipolar disorder. Starr’s team quickly determined the story was a crock, but then spent years and millions of dollars looking for a Clinton crime. Supposedly secret grand jury material was leaked regularly.

People marginally involved were investigated and sometimes prosecuted, the worst being Jim Guy Tucker, whose liver failure prevented his defending himself. In the end, all Starr’s team found on either Clinton was Monica. Starr’s team then published its full report with no redactions and unnecessary lurid details.

Robert Mueller, in contrast, stuck narrowly to his assigned topic and went out of his way to follow rules that prevented his charging a sitting president with crimes, though his report details numerous examples of behavior that many would deem criminal. There were over 100 interactions between members of Trump’s campaign staff and Russians trying to subvert our election, and at least 10 examples of the president actively trying to block the investigation. Trump’s attorney general controlled the release of Mueller’s report and allowed Trump to claim exoneration.

The contrast between Mueller’s work and the process overseen by Starr is a reminder of how ethical standards differ between our two political parties. Sadly, the country needed someone either as sleazy or unethical as Ken Starr to do Mueller’s job. ROGER WEBB Little Rock