The White House withdrew its nomination of former U.S. attorney Jessie Liu for a post at the Treasury Department earlier this week.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at a Senate hearing on Wednesday said that he learned about the withdrawal of Lius nomination “two days ago.”
Liu was scheduled for a confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday and would have become the Treasury Departments undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes. Trump had announced his intent to nominate her for the role in early December 2019 and her nomination was submitted to the Senate on Jan. 6. Axios reported on Tuesday, citing anonymous sources, that Liu was informed on Tuesday afternoon that Trump was pulling her nomination.
The Epoch Times has contacted the White House for comment.
Attorney General Bill Barr appointed his adviser, Timothy Shea, as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia in late January, replacing Liu as she awaited her Senate confirmation. She had held the position since September 2017.
In late January, Barr said that Liu had “served with distinction” as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia in a statement announcing Sheas appointment to the position. He also expressed gratitude to Liu for having served in the role.
In that role, Liu oversaw a number of controversial prosecutions related to Robert Muellers Russia investigation, including those against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and Trump associate Roger Stone.
The Washington Examiner in a recent report noted that Lius oversight while serving at the U.S. Attorneys Office in D.C. has “faced renewed scrutiny by critics who believed she was working against the president.”
The news outlet also noted that the criminal investigation into former FBI Deputy Director and CNN contributor Andrew McCabe that Liu had been overseeing was stalled. McCabe is one of a number of ex-intelligence officials who are highly critical of Trump. McCabe was fired from the FBI in 2018 after the DOJ inspector general found he lied to investigators. Meanwhile, he has alleged that his firing was improper and sued the DOJ and the FBI in August 2019.
The Washington Examiner also reported that a former DOJ attorney, Christian Adams, has raised questions around how Liu “hired some assistant U.S. attorneys who are venomously hostile to Trump and his views of justice in the last year.”
Meanwhile, the Justice Department (DOJ) has decided to override the seven to nine years sentencing recommendation (pdf) that four federal prosecutors from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia filed for Stones case on Tuesday. Stone was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorneys Office in D.C. during Lius time.
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