Special counsel needed

Little more than a month into the Trump administration, even fellow Republicans are raising concerns about ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

It’s not fake news and it’s not a story that will go away — not unless a credible investigation can put an end to it, and that means a special counsel.

Now in the abstract, we’re not huge fans of special prosecutors. They have a way of taking on a life of their own and never, ever going out of business. But let’s face facts, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, however honorable a guy, was too closely tied to the Trump campaign to not have a conflict of interest here.

There was too much of that kind of cronyism during the Obama administration. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now.

For a time it appeared that with no fewer than three congressional investigations already launched into Trump’s Russia ties, that they would be more than up to the task of gathering the facts and airing those which could surely be shared with the public.

The last hope of that ended with disclosures that the U.S. Senate and House chairmen of the intelligence committees, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) were approached by the White House to talk to reporters in an effort to shoot down articles about a Russia-Trump campaign link.

Yesterday Nunes, meeting with the press, said, “We still have not seen any evidence of anyone that’s — from the Trump campaign or any other campaign for that matter — that’s communicated with the Russian government.”

Of course he also acknowledged that doesn’t mean such contacts didn’t take place, just that, “In this case, as it relates to any campaign officials dealing with Russians, we don’t have any evidence right now.”

That’s not a statement likely to instill confidence, now is it? But the willingness of Nunes to apparently reach a conclusion in advance of a full gathering of the evidence should rule him out as a credible investigator.

It does, however, give weight to a call by the respected Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) for Sessions to appoint a career U.S. attorney as a special independent counsel to probe any links between Russia and Trump associates.

An administration that keeps yelling about “fake news” ought not to be opposed to the gathering and to the disclosure of real facts.