WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has reportedly tapped Ken Starr, who was ousted as president of Baylor University during a sexual assault coverup scandal in 2016, to join his impeachment defense team.

Starr — who has a history with impeachments, having investigated former President Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky — took the helm at Baylor in 2010 and left the school's administration after an outside investigation revealed a sweeping sexual assault coverup by Baylor football coaches and administrators.

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Starr, who was stripped of his role as president of the university and later resigned as chancellor, has maintained that he did not know about allegations of sexual assault at Baylor until 2015, when he called for an outside investigation.

A 2016 report by the law firm Pepper Hamilton found that football coaches and other athletic department officials knew about allegations of sexual assaults on campus by multiple football players and chose not to report them. Football at Baylor, the report said, "was above the rules." Baylor administrators frequently did nothing or discouraged students from reporting sexual assaults. In at least one instance, "those actions constituted retaliation against a complainant," according to the report.

For subscribers: Starr resigns as Baylor chancellor in wake of scandal

Trump's legal team will include former Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz and Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general, the Associated Press reported on Friday.

The U.S. House impeached Trump for abuse of power for withholding military aide from Ukraine while trying to pressure the Ukraine president into opening an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden. The House also accused Trump of obstructing Congress as House Democrats carried out the impeachment inquiry.

The Senate is now considering whether to remove Trump, an unlikely outcome in the Republican-controlled chamber.

ben.wermund@chron.com