Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is demanding Attorney General Jeff Sessions have no say on who is selected to be the next FBI director, The Hill is reporting.
"This attorney general should not oversee the hiring process of the next FBI Director," Schumer said. "His role will jaundice the entire process if it hasn't already."
Schumer maintained any involvement by the attorney general in the selection process to replace fired FBI Director James Comey would be in violation of Sessions' vow to recuse himself from the investigation into the 2016 election, The Hill noted.
Comey's successor will oversee the FBI investigation into Russia's meddling in the campaign.
Questions about Session's involvement surfaced the moment Comey's firing was announced with the release of letters from Sessions, his deputy Rod Rosenstein and President Donald Trump, NBC News report.
And now some legal experts say he may have already violated the recusal, according to the network.
"The scope of the recusal is very broad — 'Any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President," said Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics expert from New York University School of Law. "The grounds for firing Mr. Comey in the Rosenstein memorandum are explicitly stated to be Mr. Comey's public comments about (Hillary) Clinton, during the campaign and prior to the election."
"These grounds are plainly encompassed within Mr. Sessions' description of the broad scope of his recusal."
But an unidentified former federal prosecutor told NBC News that if Sessions voluntarily decided to recuse himself and was not compelled to do so by the Department of Justice, then he can do whatever he pleases.
"If it's self-imposed, he can change his mind if he wants," the one-time prosecutor said.
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