In 1978, in light of everything surrounding Watergate, Congress passed the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. It created the Office of Independent Counsel. According the
wikipedia article:
The prosecutor, who was appointed by a special panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, could investigate allegations of any misconduct, with an unlimited budget and no deadline, and could be dismissed only by the Attorney General for "good cause" or by the special panel of the court when the independent counsel's task was completed. As the president could not dismiss those investigating the executive branch it was felt that the independence of the office would ensure impartiality of any reports presented to Congress. However, there have been critics of this law including Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Many argued the new Independent Counsel's office was a sort of "fourth branch" of government that had virtually unlimited powers and was answerable to no one. However, the constitutionality of the new office was ultimately upheld in the 1988 Supreme Court case Morrison v. Olson.
In 1988, the Supreme Court voted 7-1 to uphold the law, with Justice Scalia dissenting and Justice Kennedy taking no part in the decision.
I bring this up because, while it was over 30 years ago and the law was allowed to expire, it was a resoundingly lopsided decision. A lot of other separation of powers decisions and decisions dealing with the Vesting Clauses are usually interpreted very strictly, usually ways in which I disagree. I look at that compared to the Seila Law decision, where the Court ruled against an individual having that much power. However, it does seem like the major difference is that Morrison had more to do with investigatory and prosecutorial powers whereas Seila Law has more to do with the administrative state. I'm actually more surprised the Court didn't find issue with the law when it came to the Appointments Clause. Five of the Justices in the majority were also in the majority in INS v. Chadha, which ruled a legislative veto to be unconstitutional. The specific case was the one-house legislative veto, which I would agree violates bicameralism. (Personally, I think a carefully crafted two-house legislative veto over certain areas of the administrative state should be constitutional.) However, it was also ruled to violate the Presentment Clause. Once again, I disagree, but I'm talking about the decisions handed down by the Court.
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