History of Attorney General Recusal, and More from CRS
“The recent announcement by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he would recuse himself from any investigations into President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign has raised questions about how often recusals by the Attorney General have happened in the past.”
“While there is no official compilation of recusals, it appears that Attorneys General of the United States have recused themselves at least 15 times since 1989,” according to the Congressional Research Service, which tabulated those 15 instances. See A Brief History of Attorney General Recusal, CRS Legal Sidebar, March 8, 2017.
Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.
Six Justice Court to Decide Liability of Officials for Post 9/11 Detention, CRS Legal Sidebar, March 7, 2017
What Is the Effect of Enacting a Congressional Review Act Resolution of Disapproval?, CRS Insight, March 3, 2017
WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, March 3, 2017
Northern Ireland’s Snap Assembly Elections: Outcome and Implications, CRS Insight, March 7, 2017
The Greek Debt Crisis: Continuing Challenges, CRS Insight, March 2, 2017
Marine Corps Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) and Marine Personnel Carrier (MPC): Background and Issues for Congress, updated March 8, 2017
Resolutions of Inquiry in the House, CRS Insight, March 6, 2017
Federal Land Ownership: Overview and Data, updated March 3, 2017
January saw us watching whether the government would fund science. February has been about how that funding will be distributed, regulated, and contested.
This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it.
Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.
Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.