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US Seeks Authority to Give Seized Russian Assets to Ukraine

The Biden administration is asking Congress for additional legal authority to make it easier for the U.S. government to seize Russian government and oligarch assets and transfer the proceeds to Ukraine.

The White House released the package of legislative changes Thursday as President Joe Biden asked Congress for $33 billion in additional aid for Ukraine as it seeks to fend off a devastating Russian invasion, now in its third month.

If enacted, the proposed measures would “establish new authorities for the forfeiture of property linked to Russian kleptocracy, allow the government to link the proceeds to support Ukraine, and further strengthen related law enforcement tools,” the White House said in a statement.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland urged Congress to quickly enact the changes.

“The proposals the president announced today will give the Justice Department critical resources and tools to continue and strengthen this work,” Garland said Thursday during a House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told Garland during a hearing earlier this week that “there will be a receptive audience to give you more money if that’s what it takes to go after the people who profited from destroying the Russian economy.”

The proposal comes as Ukrainian officials asked Western governments to hand over Russian oligarch and government assets seized since the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24.

Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said seized Russian assets, including frozen Russian Central Bank reserves, “have to be used to rebuild Ukraine after the war, as well as to pay for the losses caused to other nations.”

So far, European countries in which Putin’s wealthy associates have long maintained homes and investments, have led in seizing their assets.

According to the White House, European Union member states have reported freezing more than $30 billion in Russian assets, including $7 billion worth of boats, helicopters, real estate and artwork.

By contrast, the U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned and blocked boats and aircraft belonging to Russian elites worth more than $1 billion, the White House said.

The confiscations include the seizure earlier this month of a $90 million yacht owned by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.

In addition, the department has frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in assets belonging to Russian elites held in U.S. bank accounts, the White House said.

U.S. lawmakers have voiced support for stepped-up enforcement of sanctions imposed on Russian individuals and companies.

Critics say some of the proposed legislative changes go too far and could lead to government abuse of civil forfeiture authority.

“It’s not just aimed at ‘oligarchs’ and ‘Russian elites,’ whatever that means,” said David Smith, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice. “Many of the provisions would greatly expand the government’s civil forfeiture powers in other cases, as well.”

Here is a look at the new enforcement tools the administration is seeking.

Transferring Russian assets to Ukraine

The administration’s key proposal would allow the departments of Justice, Treasury and State to hand over to Ukraine Russian assets forfeited to the U.S. government.

At present, forfeited property goes into the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeitures Fund, which is primarily used to compensate victims of crime and to fund investigations.

To empower the government to give the money to Ukraine, “multiple statutes” would have to be amended, according to the Justice Department.

These include the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a 1970 law enacted to fight organized crime.

Garland said during the House hearing that the proposed changes would make it “easier” to transfer seized Russian assets to Ukraine.

Seizing property used to evade sanctions

Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the primary U.S. sanctions statue, proceeds from violating sanctions are subject to forfeiture to the government.

The administration wants Congress to amend the 1977 law, extending the government’s authority to forfeit – or take ownership of – “property used to facilitate sanctions violations,” not just “proceeds of the offenses.”

The IEEPA authorizes the president to impose sanctions on foreign actors, including individuals and government officials.

Defining sanctions evasion as ‘racketeering activity’

The administration wants sanctions evasion to be defined as a “racketeering activity” under RICO.

Famously used in the 1980s to bring down mob leaders, the law includes a long list of crimes as racketeering, from bribery and money laundering to drug trafficking and kidnapping.

The proposed change “would extend a powerful forfeiture tool against racketeering enterprises engaged in sanctions evasion,” according to the Justice Department.

Creating a new criminal offense

The proposal would create a new criminal offense, making it illegal to possess proceeds obtained from “corrupt dealings” with the Russian government.

Smith said the proposed creation of a new offense is “scary.”

“How are ‘corrupt dealings’ to be defined?” he wrote in an email to VOA.  “Presumably to make it as easy as possible for the government to seize and forfeit ‘oligarchs’ assets.”

Extending the time limit for prosecuting oligarchs

The proposal would extend the so-called statutes of limitations for prosecuting money laundering and seeking forfeiture of their assets from five years to 10 years.  A statute of limitations limits the prosecution of an offense within a specified time.

Conducting such investigations can be complicated and time-consuming.

“Extending the statute of limitations would provide additional time for investigators and prosecutors to hold oligarchs criminally accountable,” the White House said in a statement.
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 Biden to Visit South Korea, Japan in May

U.S. President Joe Biden is set to travel to South Korea and Japan next month to meet with leaders and discuss economic and security ties. 

The White House announced the trip Wednesday, saying Biden would go to the region May 20-24. 

In South Korea, Biden will hold talks with President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was elected in March. 

In Japan, Biden is due to meet with Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and to hold talks with leaders from the Quad group of countries that includes Japan, Australia, India and the United States.
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France’s Election Offers Lessons to US Ahead of Midterms  

This week’s French presidential contest boiled down to a debate between nationalism and globalism — and globalism prevailed in the victory of President Emmanuel Macron, an ally of President Joe Biden. What can the U.S. learn from this as Biden’s party faces elections? VOA’s Anita Powell reports.
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Bill to Help Taiwan Regain WHO Status Passes Congress

The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed legislation Wednesday calling on the State Department to submit a plan to help Taiwan regain its observer status at the World Health Organization, seeking to boost the island as it faces pressure from China.

The House passed the bill 425-0, sending it to the White House because it passed the Senate in August. Congressional aides said they expected President Joe Biden to sign the measure into law.

Taiwan is excluded from most global organizations such as the WHO, the U.N. health agency, because of the objections of China, which considers the island one of its provinces and not a separate country.

The measure directs the U.S. secretary of state to establish a strategy for obtaining observer status at the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the WHO.

Taiwan was stripped of that status in 2017.

Urging support for the bill, Democratic Representative Gerry Connolly praised Taiwan’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that it had only 37,000 confirmed cases despite a population of 23.5 million, and that it shared expertise and donated protective equipment internationally.

“Taiwan’s leadership and contribution to global health security demonstrate why it ought to be part of the general conversation on public health,” he said.

Taiwan has raised its alert level since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, wary that Beijing might make a similar move on the island, though it has reported no signs this is about to happen.

Similar concerns have fueled efforts in the United States to support Taiwan, such as increasing its participation in international organizations like the WHO.
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House 1/6 Panel Wants to Hear from McCarthy after New Audio 

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol is redoubling its efforts to have GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy appear for an interview amid new revelations concerning his private conversations about the deadly attack, the chairman said Tuesday.

Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said the panel expects to decide this week about issuing a second request to McCarthy, who has declined to voluntarily appear before the panel. The committee is also looking at summoning a widening group of House Republicans for interviews, Thompson said, as more information emerges about their conversations with the Trump White House in the run-up to the Capitol siege.

The committee is racing to wrap up this phase of its work amid newly released audio recordings of McCarthy’s private remarks after the Jan. 6 attack, when supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol trying to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.

In a Jan. 10, 2021, audio recording released Tuesday by The New York Times, McCarthy tells fellow Republican leaders that Trump’s far-right allies in the House are “putting people in jeopardy” with their public tweets and comments that could put other lawmakers at risk of violence.

Earlier, the Times reported that McCarthy, in conversations with House Republicans, had blamed Trump for the attack. The audio recordings released by the Times are part of reporting for a forthcoming book, This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future.

Thompson said the committee met most of Tuesday deciding next steps on McCarthy and other House members.

“We will probably look at engaging some of the lawmakers by invitation at this point, and we’ll go from there,” Thompson said at the Capitol.

The panel had previously sought interviews from McCarthy and Republican Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, two Trump allies central to the effort to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost to Biden.

All three have declined to voluntarily appear, but the committee has stopped short of taking the more dramatic step of issuing subpoenas to the sitting members of Congress to compel their testimony.

Thompson noted that the earlier invitation to McCarthy was sent “before this latest revelation that was reported on tape.” He told reporters that “in all probability” McCarthy would get another invitation.

At the same time, the panel is broadening its outreach to a potentially much wider group of Republican lawmakers who are now known to have played a more substantial role than previously understood ahead of the riot and as it unfolded.

“We’ll make a decision on any others before the week is out,” Thompson said.

Republican Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, a Trump ally who was with a group of lawmakers who met in December 2020 at the White House, has suggested he would appear before the panel. Brooks also spoke at Trump’s Jan. 6 rally before the mob descended on the Capitol.

Additionally, the panel is now eyeing other House Republican lawmakers reported to have been working closely with Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, as they sought to challenge Biden’s win.

A handful of lawmakers’ names were included in testimony released late Friday as part of a court filing as the committee seeks access to Meadows’ text messages.

“We will probably look at engaging some of the lawmakers by invitation at this point, and we’ll go from there,” Thompson said Tuesday.

The panel is working swiftly to launch public hearings, which it hopes to both start and conclude by June, before issuing an initial report of its findings in fall.
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Biden to Deliver Eulogy for Madeleine Albright

President Joe Biden will eulogize former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at her funeral Wednesday at the Washington National Cathedral.  

The invitation-only service will be livestreamed beginning at 11 a.m. Eastern time.  

“When I think of Madeleine, I will always remember her fervent faith that ‘America is the indispensable nation,'” Biden wrote in a statement after Albright’s death last month. 

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also will give speeches, along with Albright’s three daughters. Musicians Chris Botti, Judy Collins, and Herbie Hancock will perform.  

Albright, who died last month at age 84, was appointed by President Clinton in 1997 as the country’s 64th secretary of state and the first woman to serve in that position. She had previously served as his U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. 

An immigrant from Prague, Czechoslovakia, she helped steer Western foreign policy in the aftermath of the Cold War, in addition to promoting human rights and democracy around the world.  

During an interview on “PBS NewsHour” last month, President Clinton said that Albright “represented America’s best possible future.” 

Her death was “an immense loss to the world in a time when we need the lessons of her life the most,” President Clinton said in a statement. 
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