Will AG Sessions Appoint Another Special Prosecutor? [with comment by Paul]

It looks like Attorney General Jeff Sessions may be taking my advice to appoint at least one more special prosecutor to go after the Democrats, including James Comey and Robert Mueller. More realistically, I suppose the advice comes from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert W. Goodlatte and a number of fellow House Republicans, who wrote a letter to President Trump in July urging such an investigation. You can read the letter at the link.

The Washington Post reports:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is entertaining the idea of appointing a second special counsel to investigate a host of Republican concerns — including alleged wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation and the controversial sale of a uranium company to Russia — and has directed senior federal prosecutors to explore at least some of the matters and report back to him and his top deputy, according to a letter obtained by The Washington Post.

The revelation came in a response from the Justice Department to an inquiry from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va.), who in July and again in September called for Sessions to appoint a second special counsel to investigate concerns he had related to the 2016 election and its aftermath.

The list of matters he wanted probed was wide ranging, but included the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, various dealings of the Clinton Foundation and several matters connected to the purchase of the Canadian mining company Uranium One by Russia’s nuclear energy agency. Goodlatte took particular aim at former FBI director James B. Comey, asking for a second special counsel to evaluate the leaks he directed about his conversations with President Trump, among other things.

This is excellent news. The Post reports:

In response, Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyd wrote that Sessions had “directed senior federal prosecutors to evaluate certain issues raised in your letters,” and those prosecutors would “report directly to the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, as appropriate, and will make recommendations as to whether any matters not currently under investigation should be opened, whether any matters currently under investigation require further resources, or whether any matters merit the appointment of a Special Counsel.”

My only reservation is that one independent prosecutor may not be enough to cover all of the major Democratic Party scandals. Two or three may be necessary. The only way to deal with the Democrats is by giving them some of their own medicine. Or, as a community organizer once put it, “Punch back twice as hard.” Let’s hope that is what the Attorney General has in mind.

PAUL DISAGREES: I’m in favor of investigating the Clinton Foundation and the uranium deal, as well as other matters as to which there is a basis for believing Democrats and/or their allies broke the law. But I’m not in favor of more special counsels.

I find special counsels problematic. Their appointment is a recipe for abuse. Furthermore, the matters in question here are all within the ability of the Justice Department to handle.

“Punching back twice as hard” makes sense in many contexts. But applied in this context, it will likely beget an endless, growing stream of special counsels in administration after administration, to the detriment of the Republic.

Anyway, appointing a special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton and/or President Obama isn’t punching back even half as hard. The Democrats have no use for Hillary at this point and only limited use for Obama. For them, the whole ballgame is ruining Donald Trump.

Punching back effectively in this environment would mean firing Mueller. Will that become a realistic option? I don’t know. But appointing special counsels to investigate Democrats would probably make firing Mueller a less realistic option than it otherwise is.

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