The Department of Justice has appointed former FBI director Robert Mueller as a special counsel to investigate alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein confirmed the appointment in a statement earlier today.
“In my capacity as acting attorney general I determined that it is in the public interest for me to exercise my authority and appoint a special counsel to assume responsibility for this matter,” he said in a statement.
“My decision is not a finding that crimes have been committed or that any prosecution is warranted. I have made no such determination. What I have determined is that based upon the unique circumstances, the public interest requires me to place the investigation under the authority of a person who exercises a degree of independence from normal chain of command.”
It comes one day after the embattled Trump administration found itself in yet another scandal, as a leaked memo from former FBI director James Comey – whom President Donald Trump unexpectedly fired last week – alleged that Trump had urged him to drop the investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn.
Mueller, 71, was appointed FBI director by President George W Bush in 2001, and reappointed by President Barack Obama in 2011. He was Comey’s immediate predecessor, and one of the longest-serving directors (after J. Edgar Hoover) in history.
As special counsel, he’ll have the power to subpoena documents and prosecute crimes independent of Congress – although as Vox points out, he’ll still be answerable to (and therefore able to be dismissed by) Rosenstein, who is in turn answerable to the president.
Source: The Guardian / NY Times / Vox / ABC.
Photo: Ann Heisenfelt / Getty.
