The recurring issue of DoJ "independence"

[jberryhill]

What we have here is another manifestation of the problem of whether the DoJ, or constituent offices thereof, can be considered professionally independent of the office of president. It's easy for lawyers and judges to assume, as a matter of law, that the law will treat the DoJ as if it is professionally independent, but is less easy for politicians and the polity to do so, or to grasp the consequences of that assumption.

Rather than to have let the Independent Prosecutor law expire, it should have been re-examined and reformed to some extent - and its resurrection in some form might be a good idea.

About ten years ago, as part of the ABA writing requirement for accredited law schools, a student wrote a paper re-analyzing the often-criticized Morrison v. Olsen decision on the special prosecutor law and concluding that the decision, while flawed, could have reached the same result on alternative and stronger grounds.

That paper received the A+ for that class - by Professor Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

Foreign policy experience is not Joe's only strong suit, and I have every reason to believe he is deeply involved in determining what structural problems of the DoJ/presidential relationship need examination going forward.