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The Independent Counsel Statute: A Legal History, Benjamin Priester

Journal Publications

The independent counsel statute has been one of the most-if not the most-controversial federal laws of its time. A presence on the national stage for twenty years, it will expire on June 30, 1999, unless Congress affirmatively acts to save it. As the other articles in this issue of Law and Contemporary Problems attest, the statute's future seems bleak, perhaps even if substantial revisions are made. Numerous other sources also have heaped praise, criticism, and everything in between upon the statute. A law with so dark a beginning and so storied a political history may be doomed to extinction. Among …