Professor Jed Shugerman was quoted in an article published in Newsweek discussing the legal standards for recusal when it comes to Attorney General William Barr’s involvement with the Mueller Report.
Attorney General William Barr is already under fire for his March letter to Congress, which reported the results of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation in a way many feel was mostly beneficial to President Donald Trump.
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Why? A few of Barr’s previous employers are connected to key subjects in the probe. And some argue that, even if Barr didn’t break any rules, his financial ties to companies linked to aspects of the Russia investigation raise questions about whether he should—like his predecessor, Jeff Sessions—recuse himself.
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“The legal standard is really clear about these issues. It’s not about actual conflict, it’s about the appearance of a conflict, about the appearance of bias,” Jed Shugerman, a professor at Fordham University’s School of Law and an expert on judicial and government ethics, tells Newsweek . “The problem is that we have so many flagrant conflicts that are so obvious, we get distracted from what the legal standard is.”