In mid-February and at the start of this month, Day editorials called for Congress to appoint an independent bipartisan commission, with the power to subpoena documents and compel witnesses, to fully investigate Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election.

Developments since then have bolstered our argument that if the public is to have any confidence in the conclusions reached, Congress must separate this matter from its normal political procedures.

Additionally, it is time to appoint a special prosecutor, fully independent of the Trump administration, to assess the facts for any potential criminal conduct.

On Monday, FBI Director James Comey confirmed his agency is investigating the potentially treasonous.

“I’ve been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,” Comey told the House Intelligence Committee. “That includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”

If the FBI investigation confirms coordination, it will be up to the Department of Justice whether to pursue criminal charges and who to target. Letting appointees of the president make those calls presents a blatant conflict of interest.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from all matters having to do with the Russian matter. He did so following revelations that he had met twice with the Russian ambassador during the campaign, contradicting his Senate testimony during a confirmation hearing.

Under federal law, the decision whether to appoint a special prosecutor rests with the attorney general. With Sessions’ recusal, the matter falls to the deputy attorney general. Nominated for that job is Rod J. Rosenstein, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland. If confirmed, Rosenstein’s first order of business should be the appointment of a special prosecutor to assess the evidence gathered by the FBI.

Meanwhile, actions by the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee demonstrated the need for appointment of an independent commission.

Ranking committee member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told MSNBC about the Russian-Trump investigation “that there is evidence that is not circumstantial and it is very much worthy of investigation." Schiff said he did not want to get into specifics. How convenient.

An intriguing statement, but not an appropriate one. The Democrat should not be planting politically damaging innuendo, but instead focusing on where the facts lead and then presenting them to the public.

But if Schiff’s comments were egregious, the behavior of the Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Rep. David Nunes, also of California, was outrageous.

At a time when the Intelligence Committee is supposedly taking a hard look at whether campaign associates to the president may have collaborated with Russian intelligence to swing the election in Trump’s favor, Nunes had a meeting with the president. He shared information about its work.

Nunes, who worked on the Trump transition team, emerged from the presidential meeting to tell reporters that U.S. intelligence investigators electronically monitoring foreign officials may have “incidentally” but legally picked up conversations by Trump (before he took office) and his associates. Nunes said his concern was not so much the meetings, but that the Obama administration may have inappropriately distributed the information, rather than handled it discreetly.

This all seemed designed to get Trump off the hook for his false and contemptible tweeted allegations that Obama ordered a Nixonian tapping of the phones at Trump tower, a charge made without evidence and roundly refuted.

Trump liked the seed Nunes was trying to plant with his oblique references to the handling of incidental monitoring.

“I very much appreciated the fact that they found what they found,” Trump told reporters.

Nunes’ conduct, however, hardly suggested someone who is ready to take a hard, objective look at the conduct of Trump and his associates.

Without an independent panel, any result by congressional committees that fails to tie Trump associates to the Russian election meddling will be widely dismissed as a whitewash. Likewise, if the FBI investigation results in no criminal pursuit by the DOJ, many will suspect the fix was in.

Conversely, if a bipartisan independent panel finds no Trump campaign/Russian collusion and a special prosecutor no evidence of criminal behavior, the public will be more ready to move on.

The fact that independent assessments may instead uncover wrongdoing is no reason for the Republican Congress and the DOJ to avoid them.