SpecialCounsel history

In 1992, at the end of the Bush administration, Congress refused to reauthorize the independent counsel statute, allowing it to lapse.

In August 1994, at the request of Attorney General Janet Reno, the federal judiciary appointed Kenneth Starr, a former federal judge and solicitor general, to investigate President Bill Clinton’s and Hillary Clinton’s real estate deals in Arkansas.

His first two years in office had left him below 50 percent approval with the voters and led to the GOP takeover in Congress in 1995.

That woman, Monica Lewinsky, became a household name, and the president's efforts to deny the accusations became a case of perjury and obstruction of justice – leading to his impeachment by the House of Representatives in late 1998.

Swamped by criticism from both sides of the political aisle, the independent counsel law expired on 30 June 1999.

No other firm was asked to make a bid, according to Laton McCartney’s 2008 book “The Teapot Dome Scandal.”

Washington is waiting for special counsel Robert Mueller to complete a report on his investigation into Russian interference in 2016.

On Tuesday, that chapter took an even more intriguing turn when it was revealed that, less than a year into President Trump’s first term, Mueller obtained warrants in July 2017 to search the emails of Trump’s then-attorney Michael Cohen.