[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 65 (Tuesday, April 14, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1720-S1721]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Credit Suisse

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, for several Congresses, I and others in 
this body have been trying to bring attention to Swiss banks trying to 
hide assets that they accumulated during World War II and joining my 
colleagues in efforts to make sure that justice is done for the wealth 
and other private property that was taken from Jewish people who died 
in the Holocaust. So once again, I am back to give a report and an 
update on that effort.
  In February of this year, I chaired a bipartisan hearing on my 
ongoing Credit Suisse Nazi accounts investigation. That hearing was 
supposed to, in part, highlight the collaborative and cooperative work 
of the bank UBS, which bought Credit Suisse, along with Neil Barofsky, 
the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and the Senate Judiciary Committee, and 
what we had achieved up to that point.
  UBS had committed to fully exposing the wrongs committed by Credit 
Suisse. After all, the information about Nazi evils belongs to 
humanity. But when UBS was informed that my committee may potentially 
hold a hearing, the previous cooperation that we got from UBS was 
scaled back.
  Mr. Barofsky testified this to the committee:

       Shortly after I told UBS that this committee was 
     considering holding this hearing, UBS informed me that it 
     would for the first time conduct a privileged review and 
     withhold certain relevant privileged material from me and my 
     team.

  This is from Mr. Barofsky, the chief investigator of the information 
that we are trying to get from UBS.
  According to Mr. Barofsky, UBS leadership provided misleading 
information to the committee even after being warned that they were 
misleading the Judiciary Committee.
  For example, at the hearing, UBS testified that it had withheld fewer 
than 150 documents from Mr. Barofsky.
  But Mr. Barofsky said his team emailed UBS before our hearing, 
``expressing concern that using the word `document' was misleading.''
  Mr. Barofsky said, in this instance, the word ``document'' actually 
meant ``hundreds or even thousands of pages of many different documents 
together.''
  Following the hearing, Mr. Barofsky told the committee that he urged 
UBS to ``correct any misimpression it may have made upon the Committee 
when it referenced the number of withheld and redacted documents as 
being only 150.'' And according to Barofsky, these documents are 
``relevant to the question of whether a Nazi had an account or didn't 
have an account with Credit Suisse.''
  To date, UBS hasn't provided a true account of the amount of pages at 
issue. However, Mr. Barofsky informed the committee that, as of March 
11, 2026, approximately 23,000 pages of materials had been redacted or 
withheld from him.

[[Page S1721]]

  UBS also took legal action against the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Last 
week, thank God, a Federal court in New York issued a ruling against 
UBS's efforts. However, if the bank were successful in that court case, 
it could have blocked the Simon Wiesenthal Center from fully speaking 
on all Holocaust issues--very much a violation of First Amendment 
rights of freedom of speech.
  Following the committee hearing, UBS failed to fully and completely 
respond to all questions for the record submitted by members of the 
Judiciary Committee.
  Now, I am going to talk about a Mr. Karofsky, different than Mr. 
Barofsky. Mr. Karofsky is president of UBS Americas. He literally 
failed to answer any questions posed directly to him. His disrespect 
for the committee is noted.
  So be on notice, Mr. Karofsky.
  So I kept the hearing record open, and this week, I have sent 
additional questions for the record to the bank, UBS, and to others. 
Mr. Barofsky, as opposed to Mr. Karofsky, has since provided 
supplemental responses.
  He has informed the committee that UBS has refused to investigate 
credible leads on Nazis and their facilitators, looting of Jewish 
assets, and facilitation of ratlines. He has also told the committee 
that UBS has imposed an arbitrary July 31, 2026, deadline for 
completing this investigative work.
  Certainly, as I am an investigator, I understand timelines and 
deadlines. But I also know that you can't enforce deadlines at the 
expense of quality of the investigation.
  UBS has taken the position that it, in and of itself, will decide 
what they are going to do to cooperate after the current investigation 
concludes, whether to investigate remaining leads.
  Now, this Senator was born at night, but not last night. UBS needs to 
quit playing games and get the job done right away. UBS has spent 
millions of dollars on investigative work. Why not investigate these 
Nazi evils right now? What are they trying to hide? UBS's current 
position will unnecessarily create a cloud of doubt over the final 
report of investigation.
  As I said in March, I plan to call a followup hearing before the end 
of this year. My goal is that this hearing will bring closure to the 
investigation in a way that brings justice to the Jewish community and 
the victims of the Holocaust.
  UBS's conduct is interfering with that ultimate goal. And given their 
recent national chartered bank approval by the U.S. Government, UBS has 
a heightened responsibility to be fully forthcoming on this matter.
  I urge them to get back on the right side, where they once were, 
because it looked like we had very faithful and dedicated communication 
by the bank to our investigation. And why all this impeding of further 
investigation, I don't understand.
  I encourage Mr. Barofsky and the Simon Wiesenthal Center to keep my 
investigative team updated on all ongoing matters, whether it is good 
or whether it is bad. This Senator's efforts to expose Nazi evils will 
not stop.
  I yield the floor.