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David Laufman will become chief of the counterespionage
section of the Justice Department's national security division,
according to an internal announcement viewed by Reuters. He
starts his new job on Monday.
Laufman, who also worked as a CIA analyst in the 1980s, a
congressional investigator in the 1990s and a senior Justice
Department official at the beginning of the George W. Bush
administration in the early 2000s, joins the agency from private
practice.
Bush nominated Laufman in 2006 to serve as the inspector general
of the Defense Department, but Laufman withdrew his candidacy
amid concerns from Democratic Senator Carl Levin about his
independence.
His appointment comes one month after the head of the national
security division, John Carlin, announced a series of new hires
and changes within the division to counter growing threats of
state-sponsored cyber spying and violations of export control
laws.
The section that Laufman takes over was responsible for charges
against five Chinese military officers accused in May of hacking
into U.S. nuclear, metal and solar companies to steal trade
secrets. The case was the first of its kind, and the unit is
expected to file more such cases.
The section has also worked on recent export cases, including
against Taiwanese businessman Hsien Tai Tsai, whom the United
States linked to supplying North Korea with weapons
manufacturing technology. Tsai pleaded guilty in October to
related charges.
In addition to hires on the counterespionage side, the Justice
Department has added to the counterterrorism ranks, including
bringing in Anthony Asuncion, who helped secure a guilty verdict
in October against four former Blackwater guards in connection
with the 2007 killing of 14 unarmed Iraqis at a Baghdad traffic
circle.
(Reporting by Aruna Viswanatha; Editing by Caren Bohan and Steve
Orlofsky)
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