Key positions throughout the federal government remain vacant more than 500 days into Donald Trump’s Presidency. The President hasn’t put forward enough nominees, a mistake the media have focused on. Yet Senate Democrats—and the occasional Republican—have held up qualified nominees at a scale unprecedented in recent history.

No one understands this better than Brian Benczkowski, who was nominated more than a year ago to lead the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. Mr. Benczkowski is a highly qualified choice for Assistant Attorney General: He has held five leadership positions at Justice, including chief of staff to former Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Obama and Clinton appointees have praised his selection, yet Senate Democrats have treated Mr. Benczkowski as if he were Vladimir Putin’s personal attorney.

Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats sent a letter to President Trump in May—11 months after receiving the nomination—regarding the nominee’s “Russian connections.” They urged the president to drop Mr. Benczkowski over his “representation of the Putin-allied Alfa Bank and his refusal to recuse himself from Russia-related matters.”

What did Mr. Benczkowski’s representation entail? In 2016 news reports surfaced of connections between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank. At the behest of one of his law partners, in 2017 he hired cybersecurity firm Stroz Friedberg to examine some of Alfa Bank’s electronic records. Mr. Benczkowski testified that the limited investigation he oversaw turned up no connections between the bank and Mr. Trump’s business.

Democrats nonetheless demanded that he recuse himself from anything related to Russia. Given the absence of a conflict, Mr. Benczkowski declined to commit to a broad Russia-related recusal, though he said he would recuse from anything involving Alfa Bank.