Orrin Hatch: “under Federal law, the Attorney General may conduct a preliminary investigation to determine whether to apply to the…”

“under Federal law, the Attorney General may conduct a preliminary investigation to determine whether to apply to the special division of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for appointment of an independent counsel whenever she receives specific information from a credible source constituting grounds for investigating whether a Federal criminal law was violated by a specified category of executive branch officials, or where she determines that there are grounds for investigating whether a criminal law has been violated, and conducting the investigation would create a conflict of interest. If, after conducting a preliminary investigation, the Attorney General determines that further investigation is warranted, she shall apply for the appointment of an independent counsel. The appointment of an independent counsel is a serious matter and one which the Attorney General should only initiate when necessary. That is why I, and many others, had refrained from joining the assortment of calls for Attorney General Reno to appoint an independent counsel in connection with the 1996 Presidential campaign. Yet, last week, all 10 Republicans on the Judiciary Committee felt the time had come to request such an appointment. We sent a letter to the Attorney General, as we are authorized to do by the independent counsel statute, requesting that she make an application for an independent counsel.”