And a different sort of law issue
Jeff Hauser
@jeffhauser
People are under-reacting to the news of the unilateral installation of Trump cronies to run the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York US Attorney's offices.
At 120 days this vacancy gets kicked to local district court, which can choose to keep or replace the person (see (d): www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/546
That "only 120 days" allows Sessions' loayalists complete visibility into a swathe of sensitive law enforcement investigations.
That means:
- Felix Sater - EDNY
- Kushner - EDNY
- Zarrab/Atilla/Erdogan - SDNY
- Kushner - SDNY
- Trump Org - SDNY
- Various Russian oligarchs - SDNY
- Manafort - EDNY
and much much more!
There are literally no direct checks and balances for 120 days.
SHORT RUN: We need the Senate to leverage other business to force re-installation of a career prosecutor.
LONG RUN: Fix the broken Federal Vacancies Reform Act.
If you thought it couldn't get worse... you were wrong:
Matthew Zeitlin
@MattZeitlin
khuzami is also the former general counsel of deutsche bank's us business, which....you know...
Benjamin Weiser
@BenWeiserNYT
Robert Khuzami, a former head of the S.E.C.'s enforcement division in the Obama administration, named as deputy U.S. attorney by Geoffrey Berman, who was just appointed interim United States attorney for the Southern District of NY. Khuzami once worked as an SDNY prosecutor
Jeff Hauser
@jeffhauser
🚨🚨🚨
Khuzami has long been known to be one of the worst examples of the revolving door -- e.g., www.reuters.com/article/us-deutsche-bank-whistleblower/deutsche-bank-whistleblower-rebuffs-8-25-million-sec-award-ft-idUSKCN10T2AR
Deustche Bank is central -- see, e.g., www.newsweek.com/2017/12/29/donald-trump-russia-secret-deutsche-bank-753780.html
This news is crazy!: money.cnn.com/2013/07/23/news/sec-khuzami-kirkland/index.html
The SDNY office has all sorts of visibility into Trump and Russian money laundering.
Trump & Russian oligarchs both have conspicuously problematic relationships with Deutsche Bank.
Deutsche Bank's terrible former lawyer is now Acting #2 in SDNY.
Here's an emblematic example of Khuzami at the SEC: www.newyorker.com/business/currency/why-the-s-e-c-didnt-hit-goldman-sachs-harder
On January 29th, after months of investigation and debate, the S.E.C. provided a Wells notice to Jonathan Egol. Neither Egol nor his lawyers responded to repeated calls and e-mails seeking comment for this article.
Things dragged on. In March, Muoio wrote an e-mail arguing against charging Egol, saying that, among other reasons, he “will strike most jurors as nice, likable, down-to-earth family man.” On the afternoon of March 22nd, the team gathered in the office of Robert Khuzami, the S.E.C.’s director of enforcement, for a meeting. Kidney, Lorin Reisner, and one other lawyer present were in favor of suing Egol; Muoio remained implacably against, as did others. Most of the lower-level staffers stayed quiet.
The following day, Khuzami e-mailed the group with his decision: “I am a no on Egol. An extremely difficult call,” he wrote. “The lack of consensus among our group is itself, for me, confirmation of this conclusion.” Khuzami did not respond to a request for comment.
I guess Trump has found "his Roy Cohn," huh? The moves at FinCEN cepr.net/blogs/cepr-blog/steven-mnuchin-s-stealth-conflict-of-interest , IRS www.thedailybeast.com/trump-installs-tax-dodging-expert-as-the-head-of-the-irs and SDNY (unilaterally installing Giuliani partner Berman & Deutsche Bank's Khuzami) are Roy Cohn like.