Senate confirms Trump DOJ nominee with ties to Russian bank

[Mrs. Overall]

Source: The Hill

The Senate confirmed President Trump's nominee to lead the Justice Department's criminal division despite concerns about his tied to a bank that has come under scrutiny by the FBI.

Senators voted 51-48 to approve Brian Benczkowski to be an assistant attorney general. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was the only Democratic senator to support the nomination.

Benczkowski was nominated more than a year ago, in June 2017. He was renominated in January after his nomination was bounced back to the White House at the end of last year. Benczkowski's nomination has stalled amid questions about his work at Alfa Bank, a Russian bank that has faced scrutiny in the federal investigation into 2016 election meddling.

Democrats have pounced on Benczkowski's nomination saying it's an attack on special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation as he probes Russian election interference and potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/396540-senate-confirms-trump-doj-nominee-with-ties-to-russian-bank?__twitter_impression=true

[kimbutgar]

1. gross disgusting traitorous repuke bastards

Russia must have a lot of dirt on rethugs. Shame on Flake and Corker for not taking a stand.

[Vinca]

2. Not only is he tied to a Russian bank, the guy has no experience.

Totally inappropriate for the job, but has the ability to end the Mueller investigation.

[PearliePoo2]

3. Let's hope Mueller and team have a 'Plan B' in place!

Man, every day you think it can't get worse...but it DOES!

I have to go out and play with my dog and feed the trout in the pond now. I can't take much more today!

[pandr32]

5. And nothing happens to Rosenstein

[alwaysinasnit]

4. Manchin voting record

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/joe-manchin-iii/

[SunSeeker]

6. Republicans just handed America's DOJ secrets to Putin. nt

[MariaCSR]

7. Welp, that's the end of Mueller's probe.

[kyburbonkid]

8. Loading the house of spys

Russian agent in support of Trump to be assistant attorney general? I guess they need more deep plants to control and protect the puppet.

[kyburbonkid]

9. I wonder how his russian is?

[neohippie]

10. He worked to clear Alfa Bank

He worked for Jeff Sessions, he also fought to defend Alfa Bank against allegations that they had a server that was in communication with Trump's campaign

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/26/us/politics/brian-benczkowski-justice-department-nominee-russia-bank.html

Mr. Benczkowski has scant prosecutorial experience, but he was a top aide to Attorney General Jeff Sessions when Mr. Sessions was a senator and he led the Justice Department transition team for the Trump administration. Before returning to Kirkland & Ellis in January, he had expressed interest in being appointed as a United States attorney, he acknowledged.

The F.B.I. scrutinized Alfa Bank last year after computer specialists detected an odd stream of data between a server linked to the Trump Organization and a bank server. But F.B.I. officials have said they concluded the data stream was not evidence of clandestine communications, and other experts argued that the data appeared to be related to marketing emails promoting Trump hotels.

Mr. Benczkowski said the bank hired Kirkland & Ellis after it detected additional odd data transmissions in February and March, and that he oversaw an American computer security company’s work analyzing that traffic. It also concluded that the recent data was not evidence of substantive contact between the bank and the Trump Organization.

Asked why he did not also have the firm look at data reaching back to last fall, Mr. Benczkowski disclosed that Alfa Bank had not retained its server traffic data from September to January because, he said, it was too voluminous.

“It seems like there is a gap there that is unexplored,” Mr. Franken said.

Mr. Benczkowski said he reviewed portions of the so-called Steele dossier, an unverified set of allegations about Mr. Trump and Russia compiled by a private investigator and published by BuzzFeed in January, to offer legal advice to the bank ahead of a defamation lawsuit against the new organization.

He also expressed support for the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into the Trump-Russia affair. But he declined to promise to recuse himself from everything involving it, saying only that he would study the details and then decide