attorney general, i determined that it is in the public interest for me to exercise my authority and appoint a special counsel to assume responsibility for this matter. my decision is not a finding that crimes have been committed or that any prosecution is warranted. the person at the helm of this new probe, as i said, former fbi director robert mueller, well known to everyone in this country. he now has the power to have a grand jury, issue subpoenas, and to sign a slew of federal agents to this case. he became fbi director just days before 9/11. he served an extended 12 year term after his nomination by president george w. bush and now, he is back in the middle of it, and charge of an investigation that involves his successor, james comey. in moments, we ll be joined by fox news senior political analyst brit hume. but first, chief white house correspondent john roberts. good evening, john. good evening, martha. it is interesting to see the special prosecutor being named
the department of justice, the first time that regulation was used was a 1999 by then attorney general janet reno, who appointed former missouri senator jack danforth to investigate botched federal rate in waco, texas. in this case, attorney general jeff sessions has recused himself from the russian investigation, so, the power to appoint falls to acting attorney general rod rosenstein. it is also rosenstein who decides the initial scope of the special prosecutor, meaning whether or not former fbi director robert mueller s investigation would focus solely on russian meddling in the election or if it would also include the firing of james comey are the accusation that president trump asked then director of comey to back off the investigation of former national security advisor michael flynn. experts point out that once robert comey begins his investigation, he can pretty much take it wherever it leads. this mueller has the power to impanel a grand jury and
[laughs] martha: may be. thank you, guys. thank you very much. good to see both of you. shock waves throughout washington tonight, as the doj just announced the appointment of a special counsel to oversee the investigation into russian meddling into the presidential election. what exactly does that mean? trace gallagher has the details from our west coast newsroom tonight. some of this has been touched on before but it s very important to give a step-by-step. after president nixon fired watergate special prosecutor dear archibald cox, the appointing of a special counsel went through some changing and sprayed in 1978 commit ethics in government act that led to special counsel being appointed by a three-judge panel. that resulted an appointment like lawrence walsh and ken starr for the bill clinton bill clinton-monica lewinsky case. in 1999, the ethics in government act lapsed in the power to appoint a special prosecutor mostly fell back to
look into a lot of the dealings surrounding the trump campaign. this is different, we should point out, then the special prosecutor, special counsel statute under with ken starr conducted that five year long investigation into the clinton administration. that statute was allowed to expire. special prosecutors and appointed by top officials of the department of justice, in this case, rod rosenstein. it is also interesting to see that just a week after andrew mccabe, the acting director of the fbi, said we have enough resources to carry out this russian investigation, if rosenstein independently, he is the one who is in charge of the rest investigation with jeff s sessions recusing himself, saying, i think it is best that a special prosecutor be named here. what the white house is going for is even though mueller has all the power of a u.s. attorney, ken subpoena, cam can impanel a grand jury, we assume that will happen, he is a hard nose investigator who goes to