The Disturbing Origins of Special Prosecution Teams

They were conceived in controversy.

Many remain worried about the reign of terror accompanying the Mueller team’s two-year, hugely politicized investigation of Donald Trump, particularly since it fits a pattern that began with the Watergate Special Prosecution Force (WSPF) — and perhaps even before. It is true that the 1973 establishment of the WSPF as a specially selected team of prosecutors to investigate President Nixon in the Watergate scandal was the first such use in the 50 years since the Teapot Dome scandal in the 1920s. But this is not a fully accurate statement about the origins of special prosecution teams. You see, there was a far more recent appointment, one also made with the intent of bringing down a powerful and controversial president. But the president in question was not the president of the United States. He was the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Jimmy Hoffa was elected the Teamsters president in 1957, after his predecessor, David Beck, left office having taken the Fifth Amendment some 117 times before the Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management, chaired by Sen. John McClellan (the “McClellan Rackets Committee”). Hoffa, who then served as Teamsters president until 1971, also was a target of that committee, particularly of its chief counsel, Robert Kennedy, who took his battle against Hoffa with him in 1961 upon becoming Attorney General — a position in which he could control the awesome investigating powers of grand juries and the prosecutorial powers of the Department of Justice (DOJ). In what can only be described as a vicious personal vendetta, somewhat akin to Captain Ahab’s relentless pursuit of Moby Dick, RFK personally recruited some 20 lawyers into what became known as his “Get Hoffa” Squad. Led by FBI agent Walter Sheridan, they presented evidence against Hoffa to some 25 grand juries over four years and ultimately secured convictions for jury tampering charges: in Chattanooga in 1964 and later that same year in Chicago for...