Mr. President, I rise today to sound the alarm on the national security threat that corruption represents and to echo the determination President Biden made earlier this year that corruption constitutes a core national security threat to the United States. Along with many of my 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 International Consortium of Investigative Journalists--involving 150 media outlets, including the Washington Post and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project--conducted an investigation of corruption leading to the publication of the Pandora Papers. The Pandora Papers reveal the astonishing extent to which questionable financial flows are entering our country and that of our allies. Those warrant further review. Although we had known that such a system of offshore financing 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 our real estate, bank accounts, trusts, and other financial instruments. This is a profound threat to our national security.…
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