America can t have it both ways. We can t condemn corruption abroad, be it officials taking bribes or looting their treasuries, and then tolerate American banks making fortunes off that corruption. The Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the State Department, and the General Accounting Office all have concluded that private banking is vulnerable to money laundering. We will ask today s witnesses, private bankers from Citbank, about some specific cases showing us how and why that s true. At tomorrow s hearing we will look at generic private banking practices, the role of the federal regulators, and the significance of private banking in the global movement of money.
Private banking has a legitimate function, but it has too often been used to manage dirty money.
We must end the use of private banking by the criminals and the corrupt. I thank the Chairman for her support for these hearings and her staff for their hard work in helping us to bring these about. I also thank my Minority staff for their excellent work. This home page was created and is maintained by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.