Ken Starr fails miserably when probed about knowledge of Baylor rape scandal
After last month's massive, sickening scandal at Baylor University -- in which coaches and administrators ignored allegations of sexual assaults perpetrated by multiple members of the school's powerhouse football team -- former chancellor and president Ken Starr told ESPN "full transparency" was necessary to understand how such a horror could occur.
It turns out he can't even get his own story straight.
In a damning interview with a local Texas TV station this week, Starr stammers and contradicts himself when questioned closely about what he knew and when. At one point, he's even pulled out of the interview to huddle with a public relations consultant.
You May Also Like
In an interview with Waco CBS affiliate KWTX, Starr is presented with an email from a former Baylor student last year, addressed to him and others, bearing the subject line, "I was raped at Baylor."
Starr is asked if he ever saw the email.
"I honestly may have -- I'm not denying that I saw it," he initially replies.
Shortly after, the interview is interrupted by a public relations advisor named Merrie Spaeth. She asks that KWTX not use that answer by Starr, according to the station. When the news outlet denies that request, Spaeth pulls Starr out of the interview.
"I have got to talk to you," she can be heard saying off-camera.
When he and Spaeth return to the room, Starr is asked the same question again. This time he has a different answer.
"All I've got to say is I honestly have no recollection of that," he tells KWTX.
Then he looks up and to his left, ostensibly at Spaeth and asks, "Is that OK?"
"Don't look at me, look at her!" Spaeth replies.
Finally, Starr answers the question a third time.
"I honestly have no recollection of seeing such an email, and I believe that I would remember such an email," he says.
It's a bad look that smacks of deceit from Starr. It's made further grotesque by the Baylor sexual assault scandal being, you know, a sexual assault scandal.
Good thing KWTX caught the whole thing on video. Have a look.
Sam Laird is Mashable's Senior Sports Reporter. He covers the wide, weird world of sports from all angles -- as well as occasional other topics -- from Mashable's San Francisco bureau. Before joining Mashable in November 2011, his freelance work appeared in publications including the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Slam, and East Bay Express. Sam is a graduate of UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, and basketball and burritos take up most of his spare time. Follow him on Twitter @samcmlaird.
