Sheldon Whitehouse Blasts AG Pam Bondi For Ending Russian Money Laundering Task Force

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Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) aired his concerns over Attorney General Pam Bondi's decision to end Task Force KleptoCapture at a hearing of the Helsinki Commission on Thursday.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Chairman Wicker. As I noted on the Senate floor upon Russia's full-scale invasion

00:04of Ukraine in 2022, kleptocracy is on the march in Eastern Europe. Vladimir Putin's corrupt regime

00:11fabricated a pretext to invade Ukraine, a sovereign and peaceful nation. Putin's war

00:17helps divert the Russian people from his festering corruption and misrule, as Alexei Navalny bravely

00:23exposed. Putin for decades deployed corruption and kleptocracy as tools to strengthen his grip

00:30on Russia's government and to project influence throughout the region. In the process, he decimated

00:35Russia's free press, ended all political opposition, and grew his personal fortune to what is thought

00:40to be the largest in the world. I say thought to be because Putin's wealth is hidden behind shell

00:46corporations and nestled in tax havens, far from view of the people he robs and oppresses. Along the

00:52way, he's cultivated a group of oligarchs who also serve him as they too feed off riches

00:58that belong to the Russian people. As in many criminal enterprises, oligarchs launder dirty

01:04money through legitimate businesses and assets. Recognizing this, previous U.S. administrations

01:10and their international partners created agile task forces to target corruption and the corrupt

01:16oligarchs. But in one of her first moves after being sworn in, Attorney General Bondi pulled

01:21down DOJ's kleptocracy asset recovery initiative, which has recovered billions of dollars in ill-gotten

01:27gains from foreign kleptocrats, many Russian, many close to Putin. AG Bondi also inexplicably

01:33shut down DOJ's task force klepto capture, which was working to seize the assets of sanctioned

01:39Russian oligarchs who bankrolled the illegal invasion of Ukraine, and to provide those assets

01:45to the Ukrainians for rebuilding and defense. This a result from bipartisan work in the Senate.

01:50For a long time I've warned that America's engaged in a clash of civilizations, with democracy

01:56in the free market on one side and kleptocracy and corruption on the other. We will prevail

02:01in this clash by pursuing a powerful value of a rule of law society, transparency. Kleptocrats

02:08and criminals seek the protection of America's rule of law and secure financial system to stow their

02:14illicit money. They don't want to hide what they stole in their own corrupt and crooked countries, but

02:20they need secrecy to avoid accountability. The Pandora Papers and the Panama Papers revealed webs

02:26of American shale corporations and trusts hiding dirty assets. They revealed professionals,

02:32wittingly or unwittingly, helping criminals and oligarchs hide dirty assets. Former Treasury

02:37Secretary Yellen said, there's a good argument that the best place to hide and launder ill-gotten

02:42gains is actually the United States. My Bipartisan Corporate Transparency Act, enacted in 2020,

02:49was one beam of light into our own dark shale corporation corners. The law established a

02:55beneficial ownership register to sort out this anonymous shale company mess, helping law enforcement

03:01and national security officials identify who's behind webs of American shale companies. In March,

03:07the Treasury Department announced it would enforce the CTA's reporting rule only for foreign reporting

03:12companies, less than one percent of corporations and LLCs. The proposal was quickly panned by national

03:19security experts and law enforcement. Chairman Grassley and I joined in a bipartisan comment letter

03:26urging Treasury to rescind this misguided rule and fully implement the CTA as envisioned by Congress.

03:32It's not all doom and gloom. Treasury recently finalized proposals to shine light into the private

03:38investment advisor industry and to the residential real estate sector. The administration should also

03:43extend common sense transparency guidelines to commercial real estate purchases. Another bipartisan

03:50effort to combat kleptocrats is my Foreign Extortion Prevention Act, signed into law last Congress,

03:55co-led by several Helsinki commissioners, including co-chair Wilson, Senator Tillis, and the late

04:01representative Jackson Lee. The law empowers the government to go after foreign officials that

04:06request or receive a bribe from a U.S. individual or corporation or from any person while on U.S. territory.

04:14Our bipartisan Enablers Act would crack down on the aiders and abettors of our enemies among

04:19American professionals, lawyers, accountants, and corporate formation agents by requiring basic anti-money

04:26laundering guardrails that are commonplace in rule of law countries. To prevail in this clash,

04:32we should reconstitute Task Force Kleptocapture and the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative and provide

04:37greater resources to the offices of DOJ, Treasury, and other federal agencies on the front lines against

04:43financial crime and international corruption. Finally, we need to work together with allied nations

04:48to close off hidey holes for oligarchs, bolster the rule of law, and increase access to justice in

04:54struggling jurisdictions. Kleptocrats, traffickers, and international criminals can be defeated. They

05:01don't need to be assisted. Free societies and the rule of law can win out. This is a national security

05:07matter and the tools of transparency will secure our victory. I yield back to Chairman Wicker and thank him

05:13for his courtesy in allowing those remarks.

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