The Beck Lecture featuring Gary Lawson
Thu Sep 19, 12:30 PM - Thu Sep 19, 2:00 PM

Since 1999, when the independent counsel provisions of the Ethics in Government Act expired, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) has had in place regulations providing for the appointment of Special Counsels who possess “the full power and independent authority to exercise all investigative and prosecutorial functions of any United States Attorney.” Appointments under these regulations, such as the May 17, 2017 appointment of Robert S. Mueller to investigate the Trump campaign, are patently unlawful, for three distinct reasons.

First, all federal offices must be “established by Law,” and there is no statute authorizing such an office in the DOJ. We conduct what we think is the first thorough examination of the statutes structuring the DOJ to show that the statutory provisions relied upon by the DOJ and lower courts for the appointment of Special Counsels over the past two decades do not – and even obviously do not – authorize the creation and appointment of Special Counsels at the level of United States Attorneys. They authorize the creation and appointment of Special Counsels to “assist” United States Attorneys, and they allow existing Senate-confirmed United States Attorneys to serve also as Special Counsels, but they do not remotely authorize the creation of the kind of Special Counsels represented by Robert Mueller who replace rather than assist United States Attorneys. United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974), does not hold to the contrary, because no question was raised in that case about the validity of the independent counsel’s appointment.