Word: starrs
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...first thing Congress must do is make the independent counsel accountable to someone. Currently, only the attorney general can dismiss independent counsels. But the attorney general is constrained by political considerations. She could hardly dismiss Starr, no matter how badly he conducted his investigation. Why not give the same three-judge panel that appoints independent counsels, or some other non-partisan body, the authority to remove them...
...attorney general should also have tighter control over the scope of future independent counsels' investigations. How Starr, appointed to investigate an Arkansas land venture, managed to get involved in the Lewinsky scandal continues to perplex many. No independent counsel should be a permanent institution; their investigations should be specific and subject to tighter and more regular scrutiny by the attorney general...
...process for selecting independent counsels must also be changed to prevent obvious partisans like Starr from conducting investigations of political opponents. Starr's connections to anti-Clinton groups and individuals--the tobacco industry and Richard Mellon Scaife, for example--should have immediately precluded him from...
...Congress must also explicitly define the role of the independent counsel in impeachment proceedings. When evidence of possibly impeachable offenses surfaced last January, Starr conducted the investigation himself, instead of turning it over to Congress, as the independent counsel law requires. In the future, investigations that may lead to the national trauma of impeachment should be entrusted to the House...
...independent counsel's office--like the presidency--should not be judged entirely on the people who hold it. Though Ken Starr's conduct has been outrageous, entirely scrapping the law he abused is no solution...