The appointment of a special counsel is intended to make high-profile, sensitive investigations as independent and apolitical as possible. But current and former Justice Department officials said the increasing reliance on special counsels to handle such investigations has upended a central principle of the agency: to avoid prejudicing the public against people who are not charged.

“Special Counsel Hur report on Biden classified documents issues contains way too many gratuitous remarks and is flatly inconsistent with long standing DOJ traditions,” former Attorney General Eric Holder, a Democrat, wrote on social media Friday. “Had this report been subject to a normal DOJ review these remarks would undoubtedly have been excised.”