DOJ has appointed a Special Counsel in the Russia probe.
Wow, nice pick. It will be tough to criticize him as a torch-wielding liberal. Not that it won’t happen anyway. DOJ Special Counsel is still a little hamstrung, but it’s the best we can hope for in this political climate.
I think so. He still answers to the AG, but it could be worse.
To elaborate for the benefit of the thread: we’re pretty much back to Nixon rules, as all the relevant post-Watergate reforms have expired. Nixon famously fired a series of people (the Saturday Night Massacre) who refused to fire the Special Counsel investigating him, until he found his hatchet man in Robert Bork, who complied. Theoretically, Trump could do the exact same thing. And he can still stonewall and resource-starve the Special Counsel and all sorts of other things too.
But, and this is important, Mueller will have some degree of autonomy and authority, if not outright independence. That puts him head and shoulders above the hand-waving-nothing-to-see-here exercises going on in the House and Senate.
Nixon’s (effective) firing of the Special Counsel led pretty much directly to his resignation. But that required a Congress that was willing to act when evidence was clearly laid out for everyone to see. That’s really the weak link this time around, IMO.