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Helsinki Commission & Counter-Kleptocracy Caucus Leaders Send Letter to Leadership Asking For Immediate Floor Consideration Of Counter-Kleptocracy Act in Response to Putin’s War Of Aggression Against Ukraine

February 26, 2022

WASHINGTON -- Helsinki Commission Co-Chairman Representative Steve Cohen and Ranking Member Representative Joe Wilson (SC-02) along with Counter-Kleptocracy Caucus Co-Chairs Representative Tom Malinowski (NJ-07) and Representative John Curtis (UT-03) and fellow Commission members, Representatives Richard Hudson (NC-08), Gwen Moore (WI-04), Ruben Gallego (AZ-07), and Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05), as well as Representatives María Salazar (FL-27) and French Hill (AR-02) have sent a letter to House leadership asking that they consider immediately the Counter-Kleptocracy Act on the floor in order to impose further costs on Putin's kleptocratic regime in response to his war of aggression against Ukraine.

"Corruption is the lifeblood of the Putin regime and the system he seeks to export. This is precisely what he is doing now by waging a war of aggression against Ukraine and attempting to wipe this democracy off the map so as to replace it with a kleptocracy dependent on his own. We must become deadly serious about exposing the blood money that fuels Putin's wars and repression. The Counter-Kleptocracy Act is the answer."

See the entire letter here.

The Counter-Kleptocracy Act is a collection of counter-corruption bills that includes:

  • The Foreign Corruption Accountability Act – Authorizes visa bans on foreign persons who use state power to engage in acts of corruption against any private persons and publicly names them
  • The Foreign Extortion Prevention Act – Criminalizes bribery demands by foreign officials
  • The Golden Visa Accountability Act – Creates a US-led visa denials database to prevent investor visas being abused by foreign corrupt officials for the purpose of moving around the world freely and covertly and enjoying ill-gotten gains
  • The Justice for Victims of Kleptocracy Act – Creates a public DOJ website listing the amount of money "stolen from the people" each country (e.g., the Russian people or the Ukrainian people) and "recovered by the United States"
  • The Revealing and Explaining Visa Exclusions for Accountability and Legitimacy Act (REVEAL) Act – Enables the executive branch to reveal the names of human rights abusers and kleptocrats who have been banned under Immigration and Nationality Act section 212(a)(3)(c) for "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences," a major provision for banning bad actors
  • Combating Global Corruption Act – Creates a country-by-country tiered reporting requirement based on compliance with anti-corruption norms and commitments. Those countries in the lowest tier will have their leadership considered for Global Magnitsky sanctions.

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