When Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Nov. 18 that Jack Smith would take charge as special counsel in two high-profile criminal investigations of Donald Trump, he omitted an important detail: As head of the Justice Department, Mr. Garland will remain accountable for deciding whether to indict the former president. As Attorney General Janet Reno emphasized when she promulgated the special counsel regulations in 1999, “ultimate responsibility” for such investigations “will continue to rest with the Attorney General.” In other words, the special counsel isn’t fully independent. Their wide-ranging and long-lasting investigations led to bipartisan criticism of the independent-counsel model as having too much autonomy. Reno’s regulations sought to correct that imbalance by making special counsels analogous to U.S. attorneys, whose discretionary decisions about matters within their jurisdiction may be overturned by the attorney general. These regulations ensure oversight in six ways.

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