United States Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel

The provisions were replaced by Department of Justice regulation 28 CFR Part 600,[1] which created the successor office of special counsel.

In 1978, a Democratic Party-majority Congress was determined to curb the powers of the president and other senior executive branch officials due in part to the Watergate scandal and related events such as the Saturday Night Massacre.

Previously under the Independent Counsel Reauthorization Act of 1994, United States Attorney General Janet Reno had Donald Smaltz appointed Independent Counsel by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (Division for the Purpose of Appointing Independent Counsels Ethics in Government Act of 1978, As Amended, Division 94-2) on September 9, 1994, to "investigate to the maximum extent authorized by law" whether the US Department of Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy "committed a violation of any federal criminal law .

Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed Special Counsel in 2003 regarding the investigation into the public naming of CIA spy Valerie Plame.

However, ultimately "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities".

[12] In 2019 Attorney General William Barr appointed a federal prosecutor, John Durham, to counter-investigate the origins of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane probe.

[13] On December 1, 2020, the Associated Press reported that Barr had appointed Durham as a special counsel under the federal statute governing such appointments to conduct an investigation into "…the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III," by which was meant the FBI personnel who worked on Crossfire Hurricane before joining the Mueller team.