[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5688-5689]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    COMBATING GLOBAL CORRUPTION ACT

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, this week, I introduced, along with 
Senators Perdue, Feinstein, Rubio, Blumenthal, Collins, Merkley, 
Booker, and Leahy, the Combating Global Corruption Act of 2017.
  Global corruption is a fundamental obstacle to peace, prosperity, and 
human rights. It is fueling transnational criminal networks and violent 
extremism, and combatting it should be elevated and prioritized across 
our foreign policy efforts.
  I know my colleagues understand the crucial importance of addressing 
corruption because it undermines public confidence in government 
institutions and fosters resentment and instability. There is growing 
recognition across the United States and around the world that 
corruption is a serious threat to international security and stability. 
The countries and names might be different, but the characteristics and 
the impact on innocent people are the same.
  The bribery scandal surrounding the huge Brazilian construction firm 
Odebrecht has tarnished politicians and governments from Peru to 
Columbia to Mexico. Rampant corruption in oil-rich Angola is depriving 
children of a quality education and contributing to the highest child 
mortality rate in the world. While progress is now being made, 
extensive corruption in Afghanistan resulted in billions of dollars of 
assistance winding up in the pockets of crooked elites.
  The connections are clear: Where there are high levels of corruption, 
we find fragile states, political instability, and people suffering 
from hunger and violence.
  Corruption is a global problem, but its consequences take the 
harshest toll at the local level, and it is very tough to fight. The 
problem of corruption, and the disruption and suffering it causes, 
involves many corrupt actors, from government officials to businessmen, 
from law enforcement and military personnel to street gangs. Corruption 
is a system that operates via extensive, entrenched networks in both 
the public and private sectors.
  We know that corruption is the lifeblood of Vladimir Putin's Russia, 
and it is the glue for his regime's survival. Parasitic at home, deeply 
corrupt regimes like Putin's seek to enrich themselves, hollow out 
their own countries' institutions, and subvert rules-based democratic 
states abroad. An anticorruption platform run by opposition activist 
and aspiring, Presidential candidate Alexei Navalny recently released 
information uncovering four mansions, an Italian vineyard, yachts, and 
other high-value assets reportedly held by Prime Minister Dmitry 
Medvedev. Anticorruption demonstrations, in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and 
across the country in recent weeks reflect the ongoing resistance of 
the Russian people to government corruption. Hundreds were arrested. 
Prominent anticorruption activist Ildar Dadin, who has already spent 
over a year in prison for earlier protests, was among those arrested.
  Corruption feeds the destructive fire of criminal networks and 
transnational crime. Citizens lose faith in the social compact between 
governments and the people. In Venezuela, we have seen how rampant 
corruption has collapsed the country's economy, sparked a humanitarian 
crisis, and produced chains of money laundering that span several 
continents. The ongoing crisis there now threatens to collapse the last 
few remnants of the rule of law.

[[Page 5689]]

  Corruption also fuels violence by security forces. South Sudan's 
kleptocrats have either failed to pay or delayed salary payments to 
their soldiers who have in turn taken out their rage on innocent 
civilians, attacking them, looting and burning their homes, and 
engaging in other violent criminality.
  We should take heart that in just the past 2 years, popular protests 
against corruption have broken out in Iraq, Azerbaijan, Brazil, 
Guatemala, Honduras, Lebanon, Malaysia, Moldova, and Venezuela. In 
Romania, efforts to weaken anticorruption laws there prompted an 
estimated 500,000 protesters to take to the streets last month, even 
after the government repealed its decree, showing the degree to which 
citizens are fed up with graft and determined to push back. These were 
the largest demonstrations since the fall of communism.
  Some victims express their frustration through peaceful protest, but 
not all. The revolutions of the Arab Spring and Ukraine began, in part, 
as determined anticorruption protests.
  In every country where protests erupted in 2011, demonstrators 
condemned the corruption of detested ruling elites and demanded 
accountability and the return of looted assets. These revolutions have 
degenerated into some of the chief security challenges we confront 
now--Russian aggression in Ukraine, 6 years of slaughter in Syria, the 
implosion of Libya, a brutal war in Yemen, the fraying of Iraq, and an 
expanding insurgency in Egypt.
  Official corruption fuels radical extremism and terrorism, too; it 
gives credibility to militant religious extremists and helps them gain 
recruits and increasing footholds in Afghanistan and Iraq to Pakistan, 
Central Asia, the Sahel, and West Africa. It may seem like a spurious 
example, but it can be persuasive to a young Nigerian man whose sister 
was molested by a teacher as the cost for attending school.
  Let's be clear-eye. Any fight against corruption will be long-term 
and difficult. It is a fight against powerful people, powerful 
companies, and powerful interests. It is about changing a mindset and a 
culture as much as it is about establishing and enforcing laws.
  As my colleagues and constituents know, my attention has long been 
focused on fighting corruption. I introduced the Global Magnitsky Human 
Rights Accountability Act to target human rights abusers and corrupt 
individuals around the globe who threaten the rule of law and deny 
fundamental freedoms, but the problem is so big--we simply have to do 
more.
  This is why this week I introduced with bipartisan support the 
Combating Global Corruption Act of 2017 in the U.S. Senate.
  We must meet the scale of entrenched corruption with greater resolve 
and commitment. To do that, I believe we must focus on three things 
which I will lay out in my legislation.
  First, we must institutionalize the fight against corruption as a 
national security priority. In my bill, the State Department will 
produce an annual report, similar to the Trafficking in Persons Report, 
which takes a close look at each country's efforts to combat 
corruption. That model, which has effectively advanced the effort to 
combat modern day slavery, will similarly embed the issue of corruption 
in our collective work, so that we hold governments to account.
  The bill establishes minimum standards for combating corruption--
standards that should be every government's duty to its citizens. These 
include whether a country has laws that recognize corrupt acts for the 
crimes they are--violations of the people's trust--and that come with 
serious penalties for breaking that trust; whether an independent 
judiciary decides corruption cases, free from influence and abuse; 
whether there is support for civil society organizations that are the 
watchdogs of integrity against would-be thieves of the state. This bill 
aims to build anticorruption DNA into the basic functions of 
government.
  Second, the bill would improve the way we look at our own foreign and 
security assistance, and promote more transparency--let in some 
daylight. For countries that fall short on their corruption efforts, 
the bill calls for an assessment of the risk of corruption for our 
foreign assistance and steps to combat corruption, including the 
ability to claw back any funds diverted from their intended purpose and 
terminate compromised programs. American taxpayers should know how our 
foreign assistance is spent, and they should feel confident that we are 
doing the kind of risk assessments, analysis, and oversight that ensure 
our assistance to other countries is having the effect we want it to 
have.
  Third, the bill consolidates information about anticorruption efforts 
abroad and puts it online, where citizens can see the numbers and the 
programs. That kind of transparency is essential to open government, 
but in my experience, it also has the effect of making us better at 
self-policing our work. We can use the data to capture redundancies and 
analyze trends, improving our decisionmaking.
  I urge my colleagues to join me and the bipartisan cosponsors of this 
legislation in this effort. The success of our diplomacy, and the 
ultimate impact of our international security efforts depend on it.
  Thank you.

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