Business Insider internet magazine reports that Donald Trump has nominated a man to lead the Justice Department’s criminal division is a man that represented a Russian Bank named by the former British spy,Christopher Steele, whose dossier earlier this year described Trump and his allies ties to Russia. Mr. Benczkowski worked on Trump’s campaign and transition team from around September, 2016 to January, 2017. Importantly he also represented Russia’s Alfa Bank, (that bank that had repeated interactions with a computer in Trump Tower prior to the election) up until June 6, 2017, the day before he was formally nominated to lead the DOJ criminal division. Alfa Bank is controlled by three Russian Oligarchs.
During Mr. Benczkowski’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committe, Senator Dianne Feinstein alleged that “Benczkowski’s work for Alfa Bank ‘went to the heart of the reported [FBI] investigations’ into the bank’s involvement in unusual computer server activity with the Trump Organization during the election.” He apparently “worked with a computer forensics firm to determine any ties between servers of Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization” while representing Alfa Bank in their suit over the Steele dossier. Feinstein questioned why he took the Alfa Bank job after the election and continued to work there until June of this year, despite Attorney General Sessons first offering him the DOJ job back in April, 2017. She also asked him if he would recuse himself from cases involving Alfa Bank and Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian cyber attacks during the election. Importantly and worrisome, he refused to commit himself. Feinstein stated, “I’m concerned with his refusal especially given the position for which he has been nominated.”
www.businessinsider.com/…
Two days ago several other news sources also reported briefly about Senate hearings on Benczkowski’s nomination. www.cnn.com/…
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But then there has been nothing.
Vox magazine, Why President Trump suddenly hates his attorney general, Andrew Prokop, July 26, 2017, argues that President Trump wants the Justice Department to discontinue investigations into his campaign’s ties to Russian meddling in the 2016 Presidential election, and do his bidding by focusing criminal investigations on his political enemies. He states, “If Trump can actually manage to make this happen—by installing his cronies at the Justice Department who will shut down investigations he doesn’t like and start up ones he wants—it would mean a remarkable slide into illiberalism, and it would violate decades’ worth of norms in American government and about the rule of law.” He argues that Trump might be able to get away with it unless Republicans in Congress are willing to “stand up to him.” Later, he adds that “The president has made it crystal clear that he has little respect for the rule of law and for democratic norms, and it’s time to take this danger seriously. If Sessions is fired or quits in the coming days, the stakes for the Justice Department—and for the Trump presidency—would be immensely high.”
And I might add especially if Trump manages to get his crony, Benczkowski, planted as the head of the criminal division of the Department of Justice. With hearings over Benczkowski’s nominations apparently going on, why have we not heard more about this, and the Senate’s nomination hearings?
Prokop ends by saying “any nominee [to replace Attorney General Sessions if he is forced out], should have to commit under oath to recuse himself or herself from the Russia investigation. If the Senate confirms anyone who has not made that sworn promise, they risk letting the president get away with a potential cover-up and doing grave damage to the rule of law in the United States.”
But if the Senate does not very carefully examine Benczkowski also, and get him to recuse himself from the Russian investigation under oath, the president will have slipped into DOJ another dangerous crony in an especially pivotal position.
Why isn’t the Benczkowski nomination hearings in the US Senate attracting more media attention? Has Trump distracted the world again by prohibiting transgender military members away from a key move on his part? Certainly seems like it.