Political Quotes

“the former law provided that the independent counsel receive a salary equivalent to level IV of the executive schedule. That is currently an annual salary of $115,700. H.R. 811 contains confusing language that appears to allow employees of the independent counsel to be paid up to the same level. My amendment would provide that the independent counsel remain at the executive level IV salary, but gives him authority to hire two assistants at executive level V, a salary of $108,200 per year. At the same time, my amendment caps other assistants' salaries at that of a GS-15, step 10 of the Federal pay scale, or a $90,252 per year figure. That is the level at which other Justice Department line prosecutors are paid. Independent counsels and each of their employees, unlike all other U.S. attorneys or assistant U.S. attorneys, are, pursuant to this statute, exempted from sections 202-209 of title 18 of the U.S. Code. Among other things, that means that they are allowed to have collateral income over and above, the salary they are being paid by the U.S. Government. An independent counsel investigation and prosecution is fundamentally about one case--sometimes involving the prosecution of more than one individual--but it involves essentially one criminal case. Assistant U.S. attorneys, on the other hand, on average handle approximately one hundred criminal prosecutions per year.”