Regent Law Dean Explains How AG Barr Could End Special Counsels Right Now

In the wake of the two-year Mueller saga, critics are calling for America's leaders to reconsider the use of special counsel investigations that consume the country's attention and taxpayer dollars while seldom yielding substantial results. 

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's 22-month investigation led to a relentless anti-Trump media circus, but it just wrapped up with no solid proof of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. 

In an interview on "The 700 Club" Wednesday, Regent University Law School Dean Mark Martin, the former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, critiqued the rule that allows special counsels.

"Serious concerns of constitutionality were raised by the late Justice Scalia, and I think his warning about the damage that could be done to our republic, that we see that in the current situation," Martin said.

He says there's a big problem with the current system for appointing special counsels because the rules only say that it should be "Warranted" without defining that an actual crime has been committed.

Now America has spent $25 million on the Mueller report, and another $40 million on congressional investigations, only because officials deemed it was "warranted," without having first seen actual evidence of a crime. 

"We've so over-criminalized the American political system. This should never happen again, and the president is absolutely correct," Martin said.

"We can make sure it doesn't happen again by appointing a blue ribbon commission," he continued.

"Attorney General Barr has the authority tomorrow to change this law. It is a procedural regulation of the Justice Department," he continued.

"It is not a statute. The Independent Counsel provision of the Ethics and Government Act expired by its own terms in 1999. At that point, Attorney General Janet Reno issued a regulation that has now been in force for 20 years."

"Attorney General Barr could rescind the rule, he could toughen up the rule - 28CFR600.1 - that's where the term 'warranted' appears. We should have a much tougher basis, we should have a much tougher standard for this."

In the end, if special counsels are to remain a tool of the Justice Department, Martin says at the very least "there should be substantial evidence" that a crime has been committed and that a person of interest committed it before allowing any future special investigations like Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.