Political Quotes

“I rise today to sound the alarm on the national security threat that corruption represents and to echo the determination made earlier this year by President Biden that corruption constitutes a core national security threat to the United States. Along with many colleagues in this body, I have worked long and hard to fight corruption--which undermines democracy, human rights, and the rule of law and is behind so many of the persistent problems that we seek to solve. The recently released Pandora Papers investigations--coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and involving 150 media outlets, including The Washington Post and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project--reveal the astonishing extent to which questionable financial flows are entering our country and those of our allies. This warrants further review. Although we had known that such a system of offshore finance exists, it is still shocking to see the scale of the corruption, documented in great detail by emails, contracts, and other documents. Foreign dictators, their associates, and other foreign officials have stolen untold sums-- billions of dollars--and moved that dirty money into our democracies, into real estate, bank accounts, trusts, and other financial instruments. This is a profound threat to our national security. It hollows out the rule of law abroad and now it threatens to hollow out the rule of law at home.…”