Let Law Naming Counsels Expire, Panel Is Urged

WASHINGTON — A former attorney general and two former Watergate prosecutors urged a House Judiciary subcommittee on Wednesday not to renew the law under which independent counsels are appointed.

Griffin Bell, who served as attorney general under President Jimmy Carter, and former assistant Watergate prosecutors Philip Lacovara and A. Raymond Randolph told the panel they oppose on constitutional grounds the current independent counsel law and its proposed extension.

The law, under which independent counsels are appointed by a three-judge federal panel to investigate charges against high-ranking officials of the Administration in power, will expire in January unless it is renewed.

“I don’t like the idea of an independent counsel,” said Bell, an Atlanta lawyer who served as attorney general during most of the Carter Administration, when the law was first enacted.

Lacovara and Randolph, who worked as assistants to fired Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, said they oppose the independent counsel law on constitutional grounds.