An attorney working on the Justice Department's highest-profile money-laundering case recently transferred off that assignment in order to join the staff of the special prosecutor investigating the Trump campaign's potential ties to Russia, POLITICO has learned.
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Freeny, whose assignment to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s staff has not been previously reported, is the 17th lawyer known to be working with the former FBI chief on the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. She departed from the courthouse Friday with two other members of Mueller’s squad: former Criminal Division chief and Enron prosecutor Andrew Weissman and Civil Division appellate attorney Adam Jed, a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.
Before being detailed to Mueller’s team, Freeny was shepherding the Justice Department’s headline-grabbing effort to seize the profits from the film “The Wolf of Wall Street” on grounds that the film was financed with assets looted from the Malaysian government.
Freeny withdrew from the “Wolf of Wall Street” case on June 26, court records show, shortly before many of Mueller’s attorneys joined his team in early July.
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The Justice Department billed the "Wolf of Wall Street" case as a product of the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, an effort to pursue the proceeds of foreign corruption and return such monies to the public in the affected countries.
Justice Department officials including former Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the same kleptocracy project is probing the transfer of assets overseas by Ukrainian officials, including former President Viktor Yanukovych.
Another prosecutor joins Trump-Russia probe - POLITICO