Ken Starr, the former solicitor general who served as independent counsel during the investigation of former President Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, wrote in an op-ed that the solution to accusations of partisanship against special counsel Robert Mueller could lie in a bipartisan investigation.
In his editorial for The Washington Post, Starr wrote that despite his belief in the "honor and integrity" of both Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Mueller appears to have "chosen poorly by having smart but deeply politicized senior aides." Starr referenced Peter Strzok, a former member of Mueller's team who was summarily dismissed from it after text messages revealed his distaste for the president, as an example of the agents who expressed "anti-Trump bias" that's now been capitalized upon by right-wing media.
"The Mueller experience reminds us that any special counsel — even a Vietnam veteran boasting an impeccable record of service in the administration of justice — will sooner or later be subject to withering, confidence-eroding attacks," Starr wrote. To solve that Mueller problem, the legislature must "step up and carry on more effectively its historic role of truth-seeking oversight."
"It’s time to consider the appointment of a bipartisan Select Committee, preferably in the Senate, with highly experienced, respected members chosen by the majority and minority leaders," he continued, calling this "the Watergate model."
As history taught us during Watergate, special counsels are vulnerable to attacks — especially by the president they're investigating, as evidenced by President Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre," in which he managed to find someone to dismiss his special prosecutor Archibald Cox (and instigated the resignations of his attorney general and his deputies in the process).
It was only after the instatement of the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities — better-known as the Watergate Select Committee — that Nixon's clandestine taping system that eventually implicated him was revealed.
"Whatever the mechanism, congressional deference to the executive branch — whether its conduct of criminal investigations or of internal ethics inquiries — should be jettisoned," Starr wrote.
"Of course," he concluded, "it’s harder to imagine pulling this off in these hyperpartisan times. But that’s our system. We should use it."