David Kluft asks: “Is it a conflict for an Attorney General to bring criminal charges against a Governor?” —
- “The Northern Mariana Islands Attorney General brought charges against the Governor for theft and misconduct in public office, stemming from the use of public funds for fancy first-class air travel. The Governor’s travel violated a specific travel statute and a more general statute for when ‘A person, being a public official, commits the offense of misconduct in public office if the person, does any illegal act under the color of office.’”
- “The Governor moved to disqualify the entire Office of Attorney General, arguing that the statute by definition was brought against a person in their official capacity, since it can only be violated by a person with a public job. Therefore, the argument goes, since the AG represents the Governor in an official capacity, it can’t now be adverse to him in an official capacity.”
- “The lower court agreed and disqualified the AG, but the N.M.I. Supreme Court reversed on appeal. The statue specifically applies to ‘a person’ who commits a crime ‘under color of office,’ and therefore the statutory language indicates that he is being charged in his personal capacity for doing things in public office he should not have done.”
- “In addition, if he was only a party in his official capacity, he is not Governor anymore so the charges would now be irrelevant, which was plainly not the case. Disqualification reversed.”
- Decision: here.
- “The defendants who sought to disqualify ex-Connecticut counsel from representing private plaintiffs in connection with similar antitrust and restraint of trade claims did not show a violation of the Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct.”
- “In the large and long-running generic drug price fixing multi-district litigation, there was no valid stated reason to disqualify a former Connecticut assistant attorney general who joined a private law firm representing private plaintiffs Molina Healthcare and Humana Inc. after having represented Connecticut with respect to the same or similar antitrust claims, held the federal district court in Philadelphia. The former Connecticut attorney did not violate the Pennsylvania rules of professional conduct.”
- “The court did not find any prejudice where all parties were sharing nearly all information in question pursuant to pre-trial orders (PTOs) during the course of routine discovery (In Re: Generic Pharmaceuticals Pricing Antitrust Litigation, No. 2:20-cv-06303-CMR (E.D. Pa. Mar. 9, 2026)).”
- Decision: here.
- “A federal judge has declined to recuse himself from an immigration case after Minnesota’s U.S. Attorney raised concerns about an alleged appearance of partiality over his marriage to the state’s solicitor general.”
- “In an order issued Friday, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan determined ‘no reasonable person’ could believe his marriage to Liz Kramer — the lead counsel in Minnesota’s lawsuit against the Trump administration’s immigration surge — might influence his view in the immigration case. He rejected the federal prosecutor’s claim that he had not disclosed his marriage before, calling it a ‘well-known’ fact that’s been mentioned in many court filings in cases from which he’s recused himself since they involved the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
- “Bryan also wrote that he and lawyers from the U.S. Attorney’s Office have had ‘more than one casual conversation’ about his wife several months before. ‘The Court presumes Respondents’ counsel was not willfully misleading when he suggested that he only just learned of this fact a few days ago,’ Bryan said.”
- “U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen raised the issue in a motion filed Thursday, calling for Bryan to recuse himself after learning about the marriage through ‘public media sources’ and determined the judge’s ‘impartiality might reasonably be questioned.’ Rosen said the arguments raised by Kramer in the state’s ongoing lawsuit against Operation Metro Surge are similar to the ones cited in the immigration case overseen by Bryan. Rosen specifically drew parallels in the state’s lawsuit and the immigration case about allegations of warrantless arrests, racial profiling, arrests of U.S. citizens and more during the surge of federal immigration agents to Minnesota.”
- “Bryan ruled Rosen’s claim is ‘not persuasive,’ saying the arguments listed by Rosen are merely ‘general background facts’ about Operation Metro Surge that the U.S. government has not disputed in any of the more than 1,000 habeas cases filed since the deployment began Dec. 1. Bryan determined the arguments made in the state’s broader lawsuit are also fundamentally different from the immigrant’s habeas case — which seeks to challenge the immigrant’s detention.”
- “Bryan added that Rosen had not met with the immigrant’s attorney prior to making his recusal request, despite the court’s rules for parties to meet before filing any motion. Daniel Suitor, the attorney for the immigrant, previously told the Minnesota Star Tribune he was surprised over the motion and later filed a motion opposing the recusal request.”
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
