(no subject)

[the_rck]

One of my senators just sent out an email that included this paragraph:

"In case you haven't heard the news, they finally appointed a special counsel to get to the bottom of President Trump’s connections with Russia. It will be Robert Mueller, former director of the FBI under both President Bush and President Obama."

Comments

[lunabee34]

Thank goodness for that. This keeps spiralling out of control much faster than I thought it would.

[the_rck]

I'm pleased, too.

[ayebydan]

glad your senator seems on the ball!

[trepkos]

What's to stop Trump firing this one as well? (Not American, so I truly don't know).

[the_rck]

My understanding is that he can't do so directly. The idea is that this sort of position is only set up when it's a conflict of interest for the Justice Department to be directly involved. The whole point is to have someone who is outside of the control of existing government.

The relevant bit of the Code of Federal Regulations can be seen starting here. The first bit is short and pretty straightforward, so I'm going to copy and paste:


§ 600.1 Grounds for appointing a Special Counsel.

The Attorney General, or in cases in which the Attorney General is recused, the Acting Attorney General, will appoint a Special Counsel when he or she determines that criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted and -

(a) That investigation or prosecution of that person or matter by a United States Attorney's Office or litigating Division of the Department of Justice would present a conflict of interest for the Department or other extraordinary circumstances; and

(b) That under the circumstances, it would be in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to assume responsibility for the matter.

The following pages at the Cornell site give more information. It looks like this guy will have fairly wide latitude which includes being able to prosecute people if he can prove they're obstructing the investigation. The Attorney General can yank a special prosecutor, but the AG has to be able to show "misconduct, dereliction of duty, incapacity, conflict of interest, or for other good cause, including violation of Departmental policies."

The current AG has recused himself from everything related to the Presidential campaign and election very specifically including matters relating to Russia. That means that he's publicly admitted to a conflict of interest that bars him from participating in running such investigations and puts it in the hands of the deputy who has appointed this particular special counsel.

It's a checks and balances thing.

Clear as mud?

[trepkos]

Thanks - that sounds fairly well protected!