Democratic Senator Chris Coons, who is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wants to know why a career prosecutor was asked to resign several days before a special counsel unveiled the first criminal charges in the investigation into the alleged Russian meddling in last year’s presidential election. Coons said he was writing to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to ask whether Dana Boente’s departure from the post, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was justified.
“I‘m concerned about the abrupt departure of Dana Boente after a career as a federal prosecutor … There’s a lot of circumstances that connect the ongoing Mueller investigation to the Eastern District,” Coons said.
Boente’s district was very important for the investigation, but he was asked to quit in late October. A few days later, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators charged Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates with conspiring to launder money and other charges. Afterwards, George Papadopoulos, another Trump adviser, pleaded guilty to a charge of lying to the FBI.
The spokesman for the Department of Justice said that the agency does not provide comments on personnel matters, Reuters reported.
The investigations into the alleged Russian meddling in last year’s election and the alleged connection between Trump’s campaign associates and Russia, started after the American intelligence agencies concluded that Russia had carried out a campaign of hacking and propaganda to interfere in the presidential election, even though official Moscow denied that.
Boente stepped in to help stabilize the law enforcement agency. An unnamed person familiar with the issue said that Sessions asked Boente to tender his resignation. He will step down as head of the National Security Division when John Demers is confirmed by the Senate. After that, Boente will continue as head of the Eastern District in Alexandria, Virginia, until he is replaced.
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