House committees don’t include just representatives; they also have staffs, and Democrat Adam Schiff just made a major upgrade to the staff of the House Intelligence Committee by adding an experienced prosecutor. Who made his name going after Russian mobsters. For the SDNY.
The New Yorker reports that veteran prosecutor Daniel Goldman has a decade of experience as an assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. According to a committee source, he was hired last month as the new director of the Intelligence Committee’s investigation into connections between Trump and Russia. He joins three other former federal prosecutors on the staff. In addition to his work on money laundering by Russian criminals, Goldman was also a critical player in putting away members of the Genovese crime family for racketeering.
Goldman only left the SDNY in 2017, so his tenure there may overlap with the period in which it was cooperating with the special counsel’s office under Robert Mueller. In cases like those of Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort, Mueller’s office has provided the Southern District with its findings on charges not directly related to the investigation into connections between Trump and Russia, and allowed the U.S. attorney to deal with many issues of “normal” criminal behavior. The SDNY is also reportedly investigating other issues connected to Trump’s business, and has granted partial immunity to Trump Organization chair Allen Weisselberg.
In his previous role, Goldman prosecuted “more than thirty defendants accused of racketeering, gambling, and money laundering.” All of which is relevant to the story of Trump’s connections with Russia. In fact, one of Trump’s New Jersey casinos paid a record fine of $10 million in 2015 for “willful violations” of money laundering laws. As CNN reported, those fines covered 106 violations. And as Foreign Policy reported, most related to Russian mobsters cashing out amounts greater than $10,000 to clean up money they were bringing into the country.
With the news that House committees have issued new requests for interviews and documents, it appears that Schiff and others on the Intelligence Committee will have expert help in sorting through responses and putting together a solid case.