Political Scandals | The Independent Counsel Law Should Be Reformed

Twenty years ago [in 1978], a reform-minded Congress, shaken by the jarring experience of Watergate, approved a series of laws that began a new era of government accountability. One, the independent-counsel statute, was meant to reassure a skeptical public that criminal investigations of those at the highest levels of power would be insulated from the political influence of the very people under suspicion.

At the time, the memory of Richard Nixon’s firing of [special prosecutor] Archibald Cox five years earlier was fresh and seemed reason enough for the statute. That episode...

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