Talk:United States Office of the Independent Counsel

Former Indepedent Counsel page
Here's the text of former page Indepedent Counsel

In the federal law of the United States, the position of Independent Counsel was created by the Independent Counsel Act and signed into law on October 26, 1978. More than 35 different drafts of the legislation were submitted before the act itself was settled upon.

The act instructed the attorney general to request an outside prosecutor in cases involving high government officials where the personal, financial, or political conflict of interest is too great.

In the time since the law was passed, 21 Independent Counsel investiations have been launched (several still on-going), leading to only seven convictions. To date, nearly $200 million have been spent.

The Supreme Court ruled that the act is constitutional in Morrison v. Olson (1988).

The law lapsed for 18 months in the early 1990s, but was revived after Bill Clinton campaigned for its renewal, despite encouragement from George H. W. Bush not to. Following the highly controversial Ken Starr investigation of Bill Clinton, the law was once again allowed to lapse and will probably not be re-enacted.

Independent Counsels of the United States

 * Arthur Christy- (1978) to invesigate allegations of illegal drug use of Jimmy Carter's aide Hamilton Jordan.
 * Lawrence Walsh- (1987-1998) to investigate the Iran-Contra Affair
 * Joseph diGenova- (1992) to investigate alleged tamperings of Bill Clinton's passport files during the 1992 Presidential Election.
 * Kenneth Starr- (1996-1999) to continue the Whitewater investigation, and later the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Robert Fiske
I removed him again from the Whitewater investigation. He was not appointed under the Independent Counsel Act as it was not in force at the time of his appointment. He was appointed by Janet Reno. When the Act was re-authorized the Special Division panel appointed Starr in his place. Ellsworth 15:08, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sunset Clause
Everything I read says that the law expired on June 30, 1999. Why does the main page say Sept 11, 2001. That doesn't sound right at all. Skimaxpower

Conspiracy Theory stuff removed
I removed the conspiracy theory stuff added by. Strangely with a section titled "Historic Independent Counsel Event" there are no WP:RS, not a one. You need sources to claim this stuff, not conjecture from fbicover-up.com C56C 07:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Independent counsel needs to be split back out
The anon IP who merged the articles was an idiot and clearly not a lawyer. Independent counsel has several other meanings at the state level that in many contexts are more important than the federal definition, e.g., Cumis counsel. As a practical matter, a lot more people will encounter Cumis counsel in their lifetimes (since they are so often requested in response to an insurance company's reservation of rights) than they will ever encounter someone from the U.S. Office of Indpeendent Counsel! --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:33, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what old article you're referring to. The pre-redirect "Independent Counsel" article has always been about the federal position, and the "Independent counsel" page has only ever been a redirect.  If you want to write the Independent counsel article you propose, just edit that redirect to be a real article and proceed.  Wasted Time R (talk) 22:07, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Clarification, disambiguation, and questions
The article states: "It should also not be confused with the "independent counsel" who is appointed by the Attorney General pursuant to United States Department of Justice regulations. 28 Code of Federal Regulations 600.1." Okay. I just finished inserting Nicholas J. Bua into the article under the assumption that his appointment by Attorney General William Barr in 1991 (i.e. during the Inslaw Affair) qualified him for insertion. Apparently, it does not, according to the aforementioned sentence. Unless something is done with respect to clarifying these distinctions between Independent Counsel, Special Counsel, and United States Office of the Independent Counsel a lot of redirects will need to be changed. Perhaps this distinction can be handled easily by some sort of categorization within the main body of this article since almost all knowledge surrounding the definition of who, what, where, when, and why of special, independent investigating and prosecuting will eventually redirect to here. &mdash;Dixie Brown (talk) 14:21, 10 February 2009 (UTC)