Bob Goodlatte, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Trey Gowdy, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, have sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein calling for a new Special Counsel to investigate the Department of Justice and the FBI. They rightly contend that a Special Counsel is needed since the DOJ and FBI are disqualified from investigating themselves due to their obvious conflict of interest in doing so.

They cite “evidence of bias, trending toward animus, among those charged with investigating serious cases”. This is clearly a reference to the FBI’s fake investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of her private, unsecured email server over which classified information was mishandled.

They also cite “evidence [that] opposition political research was used in court filings. There is evidence that this political opposition was neither vetted before it was used nor fully revealed to the relevant tribunal.” This, of course, refers to the FISA warrant and renewals used by the DOJ and FBI to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Specifically they “request that you appoint a Special Counsel to review decisions made and not made by the Department of Justice and the FBI in 2016 and 2017, including but not limited to evidence of bias by any employee or agent of the DOJ, FBI, or other agencies involved in the investigation; the decisions to charge or not charge and whether those decisions were made consistent with the applicable facts, the applicable law, and traditional investigative and prosecutorial policies and procedures; and whether the FISA process employed in the fall of 2016 was appropriate and devoid of extraneous influence.”

Their grounds for appointment of a Special Counsel are unassailable. But here’s the problem. The letter is addressed to both Attorney General Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein. Sessions has recused himself from all things Russian. So the decision to appoint a new Special Counsel will likely fall by default to Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein.

But Rosenstein signed one of the FISA applications for the Carter Page surveillance. In other words, he is one of the DOJ officials who would be investigated by the new Special Counsel. This is a blatant conflict of interest which should disqualify him from making the appointment.

Whether this conflict of interest will stay Rosenstein’s hand remains to be seen. Recall that he saw fit to appoint Robert Mueller to “conduct the investigation confirmed by then FBI-Director James B. Comey in testimony before the House Permament Select Committee on Intelligence…including…any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.” He did this despite the fact that Mueller was close friends with Comey, another blatant and disqualifying conflict of interest.

In short, Rosenstein’s ethical sensibilities seem to be more than a bit dull.

So will anyone appoint a new Special Counsel despite the overwhelming and amply demonstrated need for one? Will Sessions lift his self-imposed exile long enough to issue the order? Or will he defer to Rosenstein, one of the suspects in the proposed investigation?

And what if Rosenstein refuses to issue the order? Will the decision move further down the DOJ chain of command? If so, who would that be?

Or, if Rosenstein acts, will he appoint another friend of Comey or equivalent who will conduct another fake investigation to exonerate one and all?

The conclusion is manifest. This is no way to run a Justice Department. The time has come for the President to replace Sessions so that a full-time, fully functional Attorney General can take charge and appoint a conflict of interest free Special Counsel to clean out the mess at the DOJ and FBI and hold the responsible parties to account.