Ben Cardin: “It certainly undermines the effectiveness of the statute when this sort of practice occurs.”

Thank you very much for holding this hearing on the implementation of Global Magnitsky sanctions.

You have found the Achilles hill of the Putin regime. They rape, torture and kill with impunity and keep their ill-gotten gains in the West.

I introduced the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act as a way of saying that we will hold abusers accountable even if their own country does not.

If we are going to carry this as a value on the international stage, that the United States stands up for human rights and certain values and the rule of law, is it not important that we be willing to apply these sanctions to accomplish…