Rosenstein misconstrued – and thereby misused – the special counsel regulation authorizing Mueller’s appointment. The case at that point was a counterintelligence probe, not a criminal investigation.

The appointment of a special counsel does not apply to counterintelligence matters. Nowhere in Rosenstein’s authorization order does he bother to identify a suspected crime. Thus, Mueller began an investigation in search of a crime – turning the legal process on its head.

Moreover, a special counsel can only be named if there is a conflict of interest at the Justice Department. That is the whole point of an independent investigator.

Since Sessions had already recused himself, albeit mistakenly, no such conflict of interest existed for Rosenstein or others at the Justice Department.

Indeed, the authorization order signed by Rosenstein to launch the Muller investigation discloses no conflict of interest – because there was none.

Since we don’t have a real and competent attorney general at the helm of the Justice Department, our nation has been forced to endure a continuing investigation of the president and the Trump Campaign that has produced no publicly known evidence that the president “colluded” with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election.