John Hope Bryant: “we have before us today a historic statute, a unique statute in our jurisprudence that grew out of a unique event in…”

“we have before us today a historic statute, a unique statute in our jurisprudence that grew out of a unique event in American history. That is the Watergate event of some 20 years ago. It resulted in the passage, in 1978, of a special provision that recognized the great difficulty that an Attorney General can have in objectively investigating and prosecuting another member of the President's Cabinet, a colleague with whom they work and with whom they are often close friends. And so a law was written with regard to about 60 very high officials in the executive branch. If there is a specific allegation from a credible source, it triggers a mechanism which can result in the appointment, by a court, of an independent counsel so that those cases may be investigated an prosecuted objectively and fairly. And there have been 13 instances like that. Half of them have resulted in no prosecution; the other half have resulted in very high profile investigations and prosecutions of which all of us are aware. This law has worked well for 15 years. Because it is novel and because it is unique, each time it is passed it has had attached to it a provision which provided that the law would expire at the end of 5 years, so it has been necessary twice to reinstate the law, to pass it once again. And it fell to us again, in 1992, to reinstate that law, 5 years having elapsed since it was last passed.”