This is some incredibly bizarre reasoning from the T editor:
> it was my mistake in not asking her if there were any potential conflicts. This was an oversight on my part. I say this not as an excuse, but she is, separately from her husband, a billionaire (making her through marriage a billionaire twice over) and for that reason I think I failed to consider any monetary conflict in her case.
She assumes that rich people have no 'monetary conflict' [of interest]? What?
I think what they are saying is that she is independently wealthy - as such they didn't check into her husband in the same way they would have if she depended on him for money.
http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/29/conflict-of...