7-21-17
Why Trump and Mueller aren't Clinton and Starr
Rounduptags: Bill Clinton, pardons, Trump, Mueller, Ken Starr
Related Links
President Donald Trump has sent some pretty strong signals that his next target is special counsel Robert Mueller. During his recent New York Timesinterview, the President suggested that there are conflict-of-interest problems in Mueller's office. Both The New York Times and The Washington Post reported Thursday evening that Trump's revamped legal team is exploring ways to undercut Mueller by pursuing these allegations of conflicts of interest and exploring how the President could use his pardoning powers.
Following these reports, the evening news shows instantly lit up with warnings that firing Mueller would throw the country into the kind of constitutional crisis that we have not seen since Richard Nixon's presidency. Just as quickly, Trump's supporters -- and some commentators who are not particularly sympathetic to the administration -- dismissed these warnings.
But perhaps the most telling parallel suggested by The New York Times was between the Trump team's efforts against Mueller and the steps Bill Clinton's White House took in the 1990s against independent counsel Ken Starr. Another comparison is with Lawrence Walsh, who came under fire from President Ronald Reagan's supporters during his investigation of Iran-Contra scandal.
But this comparison misses something pretty fundamental. Both Starr and Walsh were working under the independent counsel law that Congress passed in 1978 as part of the Ethics in Government Act. The law protected both men from an aggressive president, and both could count on the fact that their team would not be stifled by an administration intent on obstructing justice. Clinton and Reagan could criticize and castigate the prosecutors all they wanted, but it would be nearly impossible to have them fired. Their work could go on unimpeded.
Under the independent counsel law, the attorney general was required to recommend a special prosecutor when they were given charges of misconduct by the executive branch. (The only way to say no was for the charges to be "so unsubstantiated" that there was no reason to move forward.) A three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was then responsible for appointing the prosecutor who would not have to work under any deadlines or budget limits. ...
comments powered by Disqus
News
- The Debt Ceiling Law is now a Tool of Partisan Political Power; Abolish It
- Amitai Etzioni, Theorist of Communitarianism, Dies at 94
- Kagan, Sotomayor Join SCOTUS Cons in Sticking it to Unions
- New Evidence: Rehnquist Pretty Much OK with Plessy v. Ferguson
- Ohio Unions Link Academic Freedom and the Freedom to Strike
- First Round of Obama Administration Oral Histories Focus on Political Fault Lines and Policy Tradeoffs
- The Tulsa Race Massacre was an Attack on Black People; Rebuilding Policies were an Attack on Black Wealth
- British Universities are Researching Ties to Slavery. Conservative Alumni Say "Enough"
- Martha Hodes Reconstructs Her Memory of a 1970 Hijacking
- Jeremi Suri: Texas Higher Ed Conflict "Doesn't Have to Be This Way"
Trending Now
- New transcript of Ayn Rand at West Point in 1974 shows she claimed “savage" Indians had no right to live here just because they were born here
- The Mexican War Suggests Ukraine May End Up Conceding Crimea. World War I Suggests the Price May Be Tragic if it Doesn't
- The Vietnam War Crimes You Never Heard Of