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Independent Counsel
The Office of Special Counsel was a prosecutorial unit within the United States Department of Justice that operated from 1978 until the expiration of its statutory authority on December 31, 1999. Created by the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, the office enabled the appointment of an independent counsel—a lawyer outside the Department's ordinary chain of command—tasked with investigating and, when warranted, prosecuting allegations of misconduct by high‑level federal officials. When the relevant provisions of the Act lapsed, the position was supplanted by the role of special counsel established under 28 CFR part 600. Those regulations—drafted in 1999 by then‑Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal—authorize the attorney general (or acting attorney general) to appoint a special counsel whenever a matter presents a conflict of interest for the Department or when an outside prosecutor would better serve the public interest. Under the now‑defunct stat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Department Of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of Law of the United States, federal laws and the administration of justice. It is equivalent to the Ministry of justice, justice or interior ministries of other countries. The department is headed by the U.S. attorney general, who reports directly to the president of the United States and is a member of the president's United States Cabinet, Cabinet. Pam Bondi has served as U.S. attorney general since February 4, 2025. The Justice Department contains most of the United States' Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States House Of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of the United States Constitution, Article One of the Constitution of the United States, U.S. Constitution to pass or defeat federal legislation, known as Bill (United States Congress), bills. Those that are also passed by the Senate are sent to President of the United States, the president for signature or veto. The House's exclusive powers include initiating all revenue bills, Impeachment in the United States, impeaching federal officers, and Contingent election, electing the president if no candidate receives a majority of votes in the United States Electoral College, Electoral College. Members of the House serve a Fixed-term election, fixed term of two years, with each seat up for election before the start of the next Congress. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Post Office Department
The United States Post Office Department (USPOD; also known as the Post Office or U.S. Mail) was the predecessor of the United States Postal Service, established in 1792. From 1872 to 1971, it was officially in the form of a Cabinet of the United States, Cabinet department. It was headed by the United States Postmaster General, postmaster general. The Postal Service Act, signed by U.S. president Presidency of George Washington, George Washington on February 20, 1792, established the department. Postmaster General John McLean, in office from 1823 to 1829, was the first to call it the Post Office ''Department'' rather than just the "Post Office." The organization received a boost in prestige when President Andrew Jackson invited his postmaster general, William T. Barry, to sit as a member of the Cabinet in 1829. The Post Office Act (1872), Post Office Act of 1872 () elevated the Post Office Department to Cabinet status. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), postal servic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whiskey Ring
The Whiskey Ring took place from 1871 to 1876 centering in St. Louis during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. The ring was an American scandal, broken in May 1875, involving the diversion of tax revenues in a conspiracy among government agents, politicians, whiskey distillers, and distributors. Whiskey distillers bribed officials from the U.S. Department of the Treasury to increase profits and evade taxes. Grant's Justice Department prosecuted members of Grant's own Republican Party who were part of the Ring. The kingpin of the Whiskey Ring was the notorious General John McDonald, whom Grant had appointed Revenue Collector of Missouri District in 1869. Under the leadership of Grant's Secretary of Treasury, Benjamin Bristow, a reformer, the Ring was uncovered and broken up. Prosecutions of members of the Ring started in 1875 and ended in 1876. McDonald was indicted, put on trial, found guilty, fined $5,000, and sentenced to federal prison for 18 months. Grant's private Sec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Special Counsel (United States)
In the United States, a special counsel (formerly called special prosecutor or independent counsel) is a lawyer appointed to investigate, and potentially prosecute, a particular case of suspected wrongdoing for which a conflict of interest exists for the usual prosecuting authority. Other jurisdictions have similar systems. Special prosecutors also have handled investigations into those connected to the government but not in a position of direct authority over the Justice Department's prosecutors, such as cabinet secretaries or election campaigns. While the most prominent special prosecutors have been those appointed since the 1870s to investigate presidents and those connected to them, the term can also be used to refer to any prosecutor appointed to avoid a conflict of interest or appearance thereof. The concept originates in state law: "state courts have traditionally appointed special prosecutors when the regular government attorney was disqualified from a case, whether for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Smith (lawyer)
John Luman Smith (born June 5, 1969) is an American attorney who has served in the United States Department of Justice as an assistant U.S. attorney, acting U.S. attorney, and head of the department's Public Integrity Section. He was also the chief prosecutor at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, an international tribunal at The Hague tasked with investigating and prosecuting war crimes in the Kosovo War. He served as a Special Counsel for the Department of Justice from November 18, 2022 until his resignation on January 10, 2025. In November 2022, attorney general Merrick Garland appointed Smith an independent special counsel, responsible for overseeing two preexisting Justice Department criminal investigations into former president Donald Trump, three days after Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign: one regarding Trump's role in the January 6 U.S. Capitol attack, and the other into alleged mishandling of government records, including classified documents. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Merrick Garland
Merrick Brian Garland (born November 13, 1952) is an American lawyer and jurist who served as the 86th United States attorney general from 2021 to 2025. He previously served as a circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1997 to 2021. In 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the U.S. Senate refused to hold a vote on whether to confirm him. A native of the Chicago area, Garland attended Harvard University and Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the ''Harvard Law Review''. He served as a law clerk to Judge Henry Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and to U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr., and then practiced corporate litigation at Arnold & Porter, after which he worked as a federal prosecutor in the United States Department of Justice, where he supervised the investigation and prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombers. Preside ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Durham
John Henry Durham (born March 16, 1950) is an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut (D. Conn.) from 2018 to 2021. By April 2019, the Trump administration assigned him to investigate the origins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, and in October 2020 he was appointed special counsel for the Department of Justice on that matter. He previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney in various positions in D.C. for 35 years. He is known for his role as special prosecutor in the 2005 destruction of interrogation tapes created by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), during which he decided not to file any criminal charges related to the destruction of tapes of torture at a CIA facility. By April 2019, U.S. Attorney General William Barr had tasked Durham with overseeing a review of the origins of the Russia investigation and to determine if intelligence ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William P
William is a masculine given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman Conquest, Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is sometimes abbreviated "Wm." Shortened familiar versions in English include Will (given name), Will or Wil, Wills, Willy, Willie, Bill (given name), Bill, Billie (given name), Billie, and Billy (name), Billy. A common Irish people, Irish form is Liam. Scottish people, Scottish diminutives include Wull, Willie or Wullie (as in Oor Wullie). Female forms include Willa, Willemina, Wilma (given name), Wilma and Wilhelmina (given name), Wilhelmina. Etymology William is related to the German language, German given name ''Wilhelm''. Both ultimately descend from Proto-Germanic ''*Wiljahelmaz'', with a direct cognate also in the Old Norse name ''Vilhjalmr'' and a West Germanic borrowing into Medieval Latin ''Wil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donald Trump 2016 Presidential Campaign
Donald Trump ran a successful campaign for the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He formally announced his campaign on June 16, 2015, at Trump Tower in New York City, initially battling for the Republican Party's nomination. On May 26, 2016, he became the Republican Party's presumptive nominee. Trump was officially nominated on July 19 at the Republican National Convention. He chose Mike Pence, the sitting governor of Indiana, as his vice presidential running mate. On November 8, Trump and Pence were elected president and vice president of the United States. Trump's populist positions in opposition to illegal immigration and various trade agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, earned him support especially among voters who were male, white, blue-collar, working class, and those without college degrees. Many voters in the Rust Belt, who gave Trump the electoral votes needed to win the presidency, switched from supporting Bernie Sanders to Trump after H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Mueller
Robert Swan Mueller III (; born August 7, 1944) is an American lawyer who served as the sixth director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2001 to 2013. A graduate of Princeton University and New York University, Mueller served as a United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps officer during the Vietnam War, receiving a Bronze Star Medal, Bronze Star for heroism and a Purple Heart Medal, Purple Heart. He subsequently attended the University of Virginia School of Law. Mueller is a registered Republican Party (United States), Republican in Washington, D.C., and was appointed and reappointed to List of positions filled by presidential appointment with Senate confirmation, Senate-confirmed positions by presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Mueller has served both in government and private practice. He was an assistant United States attorney, a United States attorney, United States assistant attorney general for the United States Dep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
