Morrison v. Olson

Morrison v. Olson was seen as a victory for Congress. One of the immediate effects of the decision was that it upheld the conviction by independent counsel of two of President Reagan's former White House aides. It gave strength to the investigation then being conducted by independent counsel Walsh regarding the Iran-Contra scandal, which extended past Reagan's term and throughout that of his successor, George Bush. Though the Court approached its ruling from the viewpoint of law and not politics--indeed, the man appointed by Reagan to sit in the Chief Justice's seat delivered the opinion--the political implications of the case could not be ignored. In Watergate and Iran-Contra, the special counsel, and later the independent counsel provisions, had been used by a Democratic Congress against a Republican president. Later, with the appointment of independent counsel Kenneth Starr to investigate alleged wrongdoing by President Bill Clinton in the Whitewater land deal and the Lewinsky sex scandal, it would be seen as a tool wielded by a Republican Congress against a Democratic president. To some, the independent counsel provision seemed a necessary if unpleasant provision to maintain the balance of power in the federal government; to others it appeared that, like Dr. Frankenstein in Mary Shelley's famous horror story, Congress had created a monster.