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ARTICLE · 23 FEBRUARY 2024

The Special Counsel Regulations Strike Again

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Another special counsel has filed another report, setting off another round of accusations of partisanship. In this case, Special Counsel Robert Hur (whom I like and admire)...

United StatesGovernment, Public Sector
Chuck Rosenberg
Chuck Rosenberg

The regulations are flawed, and pouring sensitive investigative impressions into the public domain is almost always a bad idea.

Another special counsel has filed another report, setting off another round of accusations of partisanship. In this case, Special Counsel Robert Hur (whom I like and admire) determined that President Joe Biden should not be prosecuted for mishandling classified information. That is clearly the correct prosecutorial judgment.

Separately, Hur has been criticized for observations he included in his report disparaging President Biden's memory and mental acuity—observations that Biden's political opponents will weaponize. For reasons I explored previously, the special counsel regulations are flawed, and recent attorneys general have overly relied on the special counsel mechanism to the detriment of the institutional standing of the Department of Justice. Nonetheless, Hur had no choice here in one respect; a report was mandated.

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