House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, ramping up his panel’s probe into Russian entanglements with President Trump’s administration, has hired as senior adviser a veteran federal prosecutor who of late has been a legal analyst on MSNBC.
Schiff, a California Democrat, tasked Dan Goldman with leading the committee’s investigative operations as it investigates collusion allegations between the Trump campaign and agents of the Russian government, and related matters. Goldman spent a decade as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York and has built a reputation for aggressively pursuing criminal Russian actors.
Goldman’s track-record on Russian crimes is extensive. While in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, Goldman was the deputy chief of the office’s organized crime division, successfully prosecuting over 30 cases. He oversaw cases a slew of cases with Russian defendants, ranging from racketeering and money laundering to securities fraud and insurance fraud. He also oversaw the conviction for murder of members of the Genovese family inner-circle.
Since the beginning of the new Congress, Schiff and the House Intelligence Committee have been pressing the issue of Trump’s ties to Moscow — particularly negotiations during the president’s 2016 presidential campaign between his private business interests and Russian officials over a potential Trump Tower Moscow project.
Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion. In Goldman, Intelligence Committee Democrats get a television-ready former prosecutor. He joined NBC News and MSNBC as a legal analyst in July 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile. Goldman routinely appeared on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” Ari Melber’s “The Beat,” and a range of other MSNBC programs focused on the Russia probe.
[Also read: It begins: House Democrats launch Trump investigation with demand for documents from 81 people]
