WEST PALM BEACH — Former independent counsel Ken Starr praised special counsel Robert Mueller as a "man of integrity" and told a sold-out Forum Club of the Palm Beaches lunch on Monday that it would be a "grievous error" for President Donald Trump to have him fired.

Starr, whose investigation of former President Bill Clinton led to Clinton's impeachment 20 years ago, said the experience taught him that "impeachment is by its very nature a wrenching and searing national experience ... Unless there is a bipartisan consensus that impeachment and removal from office is in fact the way to go, please don't go there. You're simply going to tear the country apart."

After Starr's investigation determined Clinton lied under oath about his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives impeached Clinton on one count of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice in December 1998. But the U.S. Senate, also controlled by Republicans, did not uphold either charge and Clinton remained in office.

"In my view, the system worked," Starr told The Palm Beach Post in a Monday interview. "The House of Representatives, the people's house, supported impeachment ... But then I think the country said we like stability. We don't approve of what the president did but we don't want him forcibly, as it were, removed from office."

In his remarks to a crowd of more than 700 at the Kravis Center, Starr spoke highly of two of his former investigators who have come under fire recently — newly appointed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Starr also said he wished Trump was "less divisive." And he pushed back on Hillary Clinton's recent assertion that Bill Clinton's affair with Lewinsky wasn't an abuse of power.

"I worked with Brett Kavanaugh for many years and I have total confidence in his integrity," Starr said of the newest Supreme Court justice, who was confirmed by a narrowly divided Senate after being accused of sexual assault as a high school student.

Starr said the way the 36-year-old allegations against Kavanaugh were raised was "a national tragedy. So many norms of fairness and procedural due process were offended." He said it was "unfair" that Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., did not bring Christine Blasey Ford's accusations forward when she learned of them in July.

Starr said he believed "something really horrible happened" to Ford, "but the question is identification."

Starr called Rosenstein "a person of total integrity."

Starr was appointed independent counsel by a three-judge panel under a federal law that expired in 1999. As special counsel, Mueller is an executive branch official who was appointed by Rosenstein after his boss, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, recused himself from the probe of Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election.

Starr said he believes Trump has the legal authority to direct Rosenstein to fire Mueller. But Starr said doing so would be "a grievous error of judgment ... He should allow the investigation simply to run its course. Bob Mueller was properly appointed by Rod Rosenstein."

Starr took issue with the label Trump frequently uses to criticize the Mueller investigation.

"I do not think that what's under way now is a 'witch hunt,' and I've said that many times publicly. It's a duly authorized investigation," Starr said.

Despite many "intemperate" remarks by Trump about Mueller's investigation, Starr said it appears that the White House has cooperated with the probe.

In addition to faulting Trump's remarks and tweets about Mueller, Starr said: "Even those who approve wholeheartedly of much his policies want him to be less divisive."

During a question-and-answer session with the audience, Starr was asked about a recent CBS interview with Hillary Clinton in which she said her husband's relationship with Lewinsky was "absolutely not" an abuse of power and noted Lewinsky "was an adult" when the affair took place.

"I think that it's understandable that she would be defensive of her spouse," Starr told the Forum Club. "But leaving the morality aside of the relationship ... the fundamental issue I think is being captured these days by the question of power. And no one has denied, certainly Monica has never denied, it was a consensual relationship. But she was young and she was an intern."

Starr was asked by a Palm Beach Central High School student about his departure from Baylor University in 2016 amid criticisms of the university's handling of sexual assault allegations against members of the football team. Starr was demoted from university president to chancellor, then resigned that post.

"I had no knowledge of the various and sundry allegations and I think there is no evidence that I did have knowledge," Starr said in response to the student. In 2016, Starr told the Associated Press: "I didn't know about what was happening, but I have to, and I willingly do accept responsibility. The captain goes down with the ship."