Brian Benczkowski

Benczkowski received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia in 1991. He attended the Washington University School of Law, where he was an associate editor of the Washington University Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law. He received his Juris Doctor in 1994.[3]

Early in his career, Benczkowski served on the staff of former U.S. Senator Pete Domenici and U.S. Representative Jim Sensenbrenner.[4] His previous roles include serving as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs, where he managed the Department of Justice's relationship with Congress.[4] Later, he became Chief of Staff for the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. In those positions, he was awarded the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service in 2003, and the John Marshall Award for Excellence in Preparing and Handling Legislation in 2008. He was also the Republican Staff Director for the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, where he advised Republican members of the committee on legislative, oversight, and nomination issues.[5]

In 2010, Benczkowski joined the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, where his practice focused on litigation and white collar criminal defense, including government and internal investigations.[5] Benczkowski's clients there included Alfa-Bank, the largest private commercial bank in Russia.[6]

Benczkowski was a member of President Donald Trump's transition team, helping to manage the Justice Department transition.[7]

In June 2017, President Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Benczkowski to become Assistant Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice Criminal Division.[2][8] According to the Washington Post, "Benczkowski is a well-regarded lawyer, especially in conservative circles."[7] Politico called him the "GOP's go-to guy for hearings."[4] At the time of his confirmation in July 2018, Benczkowski had no prosecutorial experience.[9]

Benczkowski refused to recuse himself from dealing with Mueller's investigation, even though he had worked for two of Russia's leading oligarchs.[10] Benczkowski was a lawyer who had overseen the cybersecurity firm Stroz Friedberg report for Alfa-Bank related to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.[10] During Benczkowski's confirmation hearing he was emphatic that Stroz Friedberg, like Mandiant, had rejected the possibility of complicity, and the report's investigation found that "there was no communications link between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank."[10] Stroz Friedberg, gave the same explanation for why it, along with Mandiant, was "unable to verify" the data, that it was unable to inspect the bank's Domain Name System logs from 2016, because Alfa retained such records for only twenty-four hours.[10]

While heading the Criminal Division, Benczkowski and lawyers from the division’s Fraud Section met with Rudy Giuliani to discuss a bribery case in which he and other attorneys were representing the defendants. This meeting took place before the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan publicly charged the two Giuliani associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, with breaking campaign finance laws and trying to unlawfully influence politicians. In an unusual statement, Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr told the New York times, “When Mr. Benczkowski and fraud section lawyers met with Mr. Giuliani, they were not aware of any investigation of Mr. Giuliani’s associates in the Southern District of New York and would not have met with him had they known.”[11]

On June 10, 2020, Benczkowski announced he would resign on July 3.[12]

• Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
• Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (July–December 2018)
• Trump–Ukraine scandal

• Biography at Kirkland & Ellis