Office space
by Tom Sullivan
Ken Starr was an independent counsel. A very special independent counsel. You may have heard of him. He wrote this report. A fetish, softcore porn kind of thing. It was a best seller or something.
But as special as he was, as independent as he was, as relentless as he was, Ken Starr doesn't think deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should appoint a special counsel now to look into possible collusion between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the Russians. Because as Ken Starr well knows, there's no telling what else might turn up on Trump.
(Republicans fear that, LOLGOP observes, "because uncovering what he’s done might require they take a stand." LOLGOP believes an independent investigation offers false relief from anxiety, anxiety having a way of focusing the mind -- and the opposition.)
So current investigations by the Republican-controlled congress should go forward, Starr believes, and FBI investigators should be allowed to do their work. Because while independent counsels are busy scrutinizing, they themselves may come under scrutiny, m'kay? Plus, they are expensive.
Starr told George Stephanopoulos on This Week:
And I'll just say this, there's some huge costs. And I think the nation knows this. With the appointment of a special prosecutor. The first is delay. A special prosecutor, a special counsel, is a startup operation. He or she has nothing, absolutely nothing. Got to go get office space, among other things.I suppose we'll just have to wait for the start of Trump's War™ to appoint a special counsel. Because every war is a startup where cost is no object, delays are expected, and office space we pay private contractors an exorbitant markup to build badly, tear down, and build again, or we simply confiscate space from the locals. Problem solved.
But here's the key, the FBI is going the continue to serve whoever that special counsel is, heaven forbid if we have one. And moreover, that special counsel is likewise going to come under political scrutiny. I can speak for that. Lawrence Walsh in Iran Contra can speak to that. There is no way to insulate an investigation at this level from criticism and the like.
So, let's trust our guardrails, let's trust the checks and balances that we have, especially with the Senate intelligence committee. And, again, I think we should be reassured when you have got Chairman Burr and Senator Warner, both very of whom very respected members of the senate, both saying, Democrat and Republican, we're going to get to the truth of the matter.