By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX -- Former state Attorney General Mark Brnovich is not going to be the next ambassador to Serbia.
The White House late last week sent a message to the Senate that it was withdrawing Brnovich's nomination. No reason was given for the announcement. And there was no immediate response from the White House.
Brnovich himself did not return repeated messages seeking comment.
But in a statement reported in the Sebian Times, he said it became clear that his nomination on April 29 was not going anywhere.
"As the process dragged on, it became clear that the bureaucracy of the 'deep state' does not want to serve anyone with my political, ethnic and religious background in Serbia,'' he said. Yet Brnovich said both of his parents came from Serbia.
Brnovich, in thanking the president, said that he will take advantage of his status.
"I believe that staying close to family and friends in Arizona and finding an opportunity to play a greater role in the domestic political plan is the best way at this moment,'' he told Serbian Times.
Trump's nomination came after Brnovich, who had been state attorney general for eight years, made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 2022. But he lost the GOP primary to Blake Masters who, in turn, was defeated in the general election by Democrat Mark Kelly.
He had a rocky relationship with the president and his supporters after the 2020 race -- the one that Trump lost both nationally and in Arizona -- who claimed that he was unwilling or unable to properly investigate their claims the election was rigged. In fact, Trump endorsed Masters in the primary.
In his first report in 2022, Brnovich recommended some changes in election law. That, however, produced no indictments nor evidence or fraud beyond a handful of people who had voted someone else's ballot.
Later that year he debunked findings in an "audit'' of the 2020 race by ordered by then-Senate President Karen Fann who had hired a firm known as Cyber Ninjas to review the returns. They alleged that ballots were cast by people who had died.
"Our agents investigated all individuals that Cyber Ninjas reported as dead,'' Brnovich said at the time. "Many were very surprised to learn they were allegedly deceased.''
Whatever were Trump's feelings in 2022, things apparently changed after he was returned to the White House in 2024.
In a post on Truth Social, the president wrote that Brnovich "will be a strong advocate for Freedom, and always put AMERICA FIRST.''
The State Department, in its most recent report on Serbia, said the country "occupies a key strategic juncture at the social, political, and geographic crossroads of Eastern and Western Europe.''
But the New York Times reported earlier this year that the relationship s much more complex, including that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, has a deal with the Serbian government to build a $500 million hotel and apartment complex in the center of Belgrade, the nation's capital. That project, the Times reports, involves the Trump Organization which is run by Eric and Donald Jr., and the hotel will bear the Trump name.
The paper reports that the project has come under scrutiny from investigators after the Serbian government cleared the way by declaring that the site, a bombed-out building that services as an icon to Serbians who suffered during a 1999 conflict -- was no longer a culturally protected asset.
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