The Independent Counsel Act – legislative sponsor of Kenneth Starr – will expire tonight at midnight. And Attorney General Janet Reno will take the reigns tomorrow as the sole arbiter of ethics investigations led by outside counsel.
Under the new regime, the attorney general will decide when to appoint outside prosecutors due to an internal conflict of interest. Reno will essentially replace the three-judge panel that picked independent counsels, determined their jurisdiction and terminated investigations under the Independent Counsel Act. And the name will change — Reno’s prosecutors will be called special counsels.
