EXPLAINER: What are special counsels and what do they do?

By MEG KINNARD
Associated Press

The appointment of a special counsel to oversee the Justice Department’s probe of Hunter Biden is bringing renewed attention on the role such prosecutors have played in history. On Friday, Attorney General Merrick Garland tapped David Weiss to oversee the department’s investigation. Weiss is the U.S. attorney in Delaware who has been probing the financial and business dealings of the president’s son. A special counsel is an attorney appointed to investigate, and possibly prosecute, a case in which the Justice Department perceives itself as having a conflict or where it’s deemed to be in the public interest to have someone outside the government come in and take responsibility.