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(CNN)Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday he will recuse himself from any existing or future investigations related to President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign amid an ever-growing chorus of demands for him to step aside.
Details emerged late Wednesday that Sessions had met with a Russian diplomat last year and he failed to disclose those meetings during his Senate confirmation process, adding to the concerns about his impartiality on any investigation into alleged ties between surrogates for Trump’s campaign and Russians.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday that Sessions’ acting deputy attorney general, Dana Boente, should appoint a special prosecutor to oversee the investigation.
Earlier in the day, Schumer also raised the the prospect of reviving a decades-old independent counsel law.
For example, in 2003, then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey (who is now the FBI director), in his capacity as acting attorney general (upon recusal of Attorney General John Ashcroft), named Patrick Fitzgerald special counsel to investigate who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson amid mounting public pressure for an independent examination of the allegations. The investigation led to the conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney’s then-chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, for lying to a grand jury and obstruction of justice.
Sessions himself has not shied away from calls for special prosecutors. During the 2016 campaign, Sessions called on then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch to recuse herself from the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and to appoint a special prosecutor in the case.
Independent Counsel Act
Prior to the regulations regarding special counsels, Congress passed the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 after Watergate, which provided for the appointment of “independent counsels.”
Under that law, the attorney general would petition a special three-judge panel to name an independent counsel after receiving credible allegations of criminal misconduct by a federal employe whose prosecution might give rise to an appearance of a conflict of interest.
Yet the law was widely criticized by many after Kenneth Starr’s lengthy investigation into President Bill Clinton, and in 1999, Congress allowed the independent counsel provisions of the law to lapse.
“The law was not drafted tightly enough. But in this case, cognizant and wary of that history, we would work to craft a narrow authority, with specific guidelines for this investigation, to prevent this from becoming a political witch hunt,” Schumer said Thursday.
While in theory it is possible that Congress could reauthorize the independent counsel law as Schumer suggests, it would not necessarily be smooth sailing given that Republicans control the Senate and he would need bipartisan support for any new measure.
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