James Lankford: “my friend from Rhode Island and I, we have a lot of great conversations. I think we both agree on the problem here.…”

“my friend from Rhode Island and I, we have a lot of great conversations. I think we both agree on the problem here. There is clearly a problem that money could be laundered and hidden in American companies and shell companies. There is no question. I think what we disagree on is the answer to that problem. In this setting, with this set of forms, the assumption is that those who are doing international money laundering would put down their accurate information and would identify themselves as international terrorists and money launderers. In this particular setting, every small business owner who owns a restaurant or a pet store or a bookstore or is a plumber or owns a roofing company--30 million, in fact, small businesses in America--they all have to prove their innocence. The assumption is that a Russian oligarch who is trying to hide money will tell the truth when he fills his form out, and I find that hard to believe. But in the meantime, 30 million small businesses have to go through a form, and within weeks, probably 23 million of those will be in violation of the law, and they will face penalties of $10,000 or 2 years in jail. And most of those small business owners who run that restaurant down the street don't even know this rule exists. It is the kind of stuff that drives Americans crazy, that they woke up one day and found out they may go to jail tomorrow because they didn't fill out a form that someone wanted. That is what we are trying to pause.…”