Prepared Floor Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
FBI Facilitation of Ransom Payments
July 13, 2016
Mr. President, I rise today to speak about allegations that the FBI has facilitated ransom payments to terrorist groups.
Unfortunately, the administration has been stonewalling the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation into the matter.
We’ve seen many terrible terrorist attacks recently. The government’s highest duty is to provide for national security. That means fighting the radical Islamic terrorist groups who mean us harm. An important part of fighting radical Islamic terrorist groups is going after their funding.
The US government should do everything it can to stop money from flowing to groups like al Qaeda and ISIS. And the government has had significant successes in fighting terrorist funding.
Ransom payments for hostages are one of the key sources of funds for terrorist groups to raise money. The government should not be participating in helping to make such payments.
Yet in April of last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI had helped facilitate a $250,000 ransom payment to al Qaeda. It was from the family of kidnapped aid worker Warren Weinstein back in 2012. That report was later confirmed by 60 Minutes in an interview with Dr. Weinstein’s widow.
Around the same time as that Wall Street Journal article, Army Lieutenant Colonel Jason Amerine contacted Judiciary Committee staff. He is a decorated war hero who reached out to Congressman Hunter, Senator Johnson, and to my office, to raise concerns about ineffective hostage-recovery efforts.
He alleged that the FBI was involved in a ransom payment made in an effort to recover Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.
To be clear, the US government should take all appropriate measures to recover American hostages. But those measures cannot include ransom payments that end up funding more terrorist operations.
Ransom payments are big business for terrorist groups. According to a 2014 investigation by the New York Times, Al Qaeda and its affiliates have taken in at least 125 million dollars from kidnapping for ransom since 2008.
ISIS also takes in huge amounts from ransom payments. The United Nations estimated that ISIS collected between 35 and 45 million dollars in ransom payments in 2014 alone.
This is a serious threat to our national security.
In 2012, David S. Cohen, who was the Treasury Department’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the time, explained why in a presentation on the issue.
He said, quote:
“Ransom payments lead to future kidnappings, and future kidnappings lead to additional ransom payments.
“And it all builds the capacity of terrorist organizations to conduct attacks.
“Al Qaeda affiliates use ransom money to help fund the full range of their activities, including recruiting and indoctrinating new members, paying salaries, establishing training camps, acquiring weapons and communications gear and helping to support the next generation of violent extremist groups.”
End quote.
Paying ransoms incentivizes terrorists to kidnap more people. And it funds their terrorist attacks.
The administration says it is still US policy for the government to deny hostage-takers the benefits of ransom. But its policy on helping others make ransom payments is murky. If the FBI pays lip-service to the no-ransom policy by not making payments itself, but facilitates payments by others, then the financial incentive for terrorists to kidnap people remains the same.
The Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over the Department of Justice, including the FBI. The FBI’s hostage-recovery efforts, including any facilitated ransom payments, must be subject to constitutional oversight by the Committee. The Justice Department has failed to fully cooperate with the Committee’s inquiries.
In May of last year I wrote to the Attorney General. I asked several questions about the FBI’s alleged involvement in facilitating payments to terrorist groups. Among other things, I asked: “Has the FBI been involved in any transfer of money in connection with attempts to secure the release of hostages held by al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Haqqani network, ISIS, or associated forces?”
The Justice Department failed to respond for five months.
In the meantime, the President issued Executive Order 13698 and Presidential Policy Directive 30. Those established a new hostage-recovery policy as the result of an interagency review.
Then, five months after I sent my questions to the Attorney General, the Justice Department finally sent me a response. That response failed to answer my questions. Instead, the response just summarized the public documents released by the administration when it announced its new hostage-recovery policy.
Merely pointing to publicly available documents is not good faith cooperation with independent fact finding. So, I wrote to the White House last fall. I asked that the administration provide the Committee the classified parts of the new hostage-recovery policy, PPD-30, as well as the classified part of the policy it replaced, NSPD-12. But the administration failed to share those classified parts of the policies with the Committee.
Think about that. The FBI plays a key role in hostage-recovery efforts. The Judiciary Committee is responsible for overseeing the FBI. And yet, the administration refuses to even tell the Committee in full what its written policies say.
That kind of stonewalling is unacceptable.
I referred the matter to the Inspector General for the Department of Justice last October. In February, he informed me that his office had opened an initial inquiry. That inquiry is ongoing.
My investigation continues as well.
Yesterday I sent another letter to Attorney General Lynch and Director Comey seeking complete answers to my questions and complete copies of the policy documents.
If the public reports are accurate, then there is a very real possibility that the FBI has helped send millions of dollars to al Qaeda and ISIS. That money inevitably was used to help terrorists kill more innocent people.
The Judiciary Committee needs all the facts to get to the bottom of this. The FBI should cooperate. The Department of Justice should cooperate. And the White House should cooperate.
Mr. President, FBI Director Comey and Attorney General Lynch should fully respond to all the questions in my May 2015 letter. I ask unanimous consent to place a copy of that letter in the record.
There is no excuse for stonewalling oversight. But it is especially inexcusable in a matter as important as this. It is shocking that the only answer the FBI can come up with to these allegations is silence.
Burying our heads in the sand does not make the issue go away. If our government is assisting in paying ransom money to terrorists, Congress needs to know. The public needs to know. The government officials involved need to be accountable.
The facts cannot be hidden from the FBI’s oversight committee. The policies implementing our laws on this topic cannot be kept secret from the FBI’s oversight committee.
I yield the floor.
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