Tom Malinowski: “This is a rare moment in this House. We have a bipartisan bill, a bill that we have worked together, Republicans and…”

“This is a rare moment in this House. We have a bipartisan bill, a bill that we have worked together, Republicans and Democrats in the House. We have worked together in the Senate. There is a companion piece of legislation; it has been praised by the Trump administration. We have a chance to do something tremendously good here, and the bill says something very simple: No one should be able to establish in the United States a shell company with completely secret ownership, secret even from law enforcement. We are saying that we are not Panama. We are not the Cayman Islands. We are not some little island nation tax shelter that puts out a welcome mat for drug dealers and arms dealers and dictators hiding money from their people. We are the United States of America. We are a nation of laws that does not tolerate corruption at home and that fights corruption around the world. Mr. Speaker, when I was running the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at the State Department, I would often speak to dissidents fighting for freedom in countries like Russia. And I would say to them, What can we do to help you? And they would say, You know what, we don't ask you to fight all of our battles for us, but just don't be complicit in what our dictatorship does to us.…”