Attorney General William Barr will not recuse himself from overseeing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, a representative said Monday.
“Following General Barr’s confirmation, senior career ethics officials advised that General Barr should not recuse himself from the Special Counsel’s investigation,” Kerri Kupec, the Director of the Office of Public Affairs at the Department of Justice, told Fox News in a statement.
“Consistent with that advice, General Barr has decided not to recuse," she added.
During his confirmation hearing in January, Barr said he believed it was in the public interest for Mueller to complete his investigation and that he would make as much information about it available to Congress and the general public as he could.
Under Justice Department guidelines, Mueller will provide a confidential report to Barr that explains his decisions to pursue or decline prosecutions. Barr will then prepare his own report that would be released to Congress. He has said he intends to share some information with the public, though it’s unclear whether Mueller’s actual report will ever be made public. (AP)
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said last month Americans should be confident Barr will make the right decision on whether to release the final conclusions of Mueller's investigation.
“That’s going to be a decision the attorney general makes as to what to do with whatever information is provided to him,” he said in a speech before the Center for Strategic & International Studies. “I think Attorney General Barr is going to make the right decision. You can trust him to do this … I think we can count on him to do the right thing.”
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President Trump long railed against former Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, telling the New York Times that if he had known he would do that he would never have nominated him.
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