Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) grilled a top Justice Department national security official at a hearing today about a secret non-prosecution agreement the department reached recently with an Islamic bank connected to terrorist financing.
“I think it was an unusual move when the department issued no press release about this agreement,” Grassley told Lisa Monaco, head of the department’s National Security Division, during a subcommittee hearing on countering terrorist financing. Main Justice detailed the agreement in an article last month.
National Security Division chief Lisa Monaco answered questions before s Senate Judiciary panel
The Islamic Investment Co. of the Gulf (Bahamas) Ltd., which reportedly has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, agreed to pay some $37 million to resolve an investigation into whether the firm structured its real estate investments to unlawfully avoid U.S. taxes on them, people familiar with the matter told Main Justice last month.
The department began a probe of the bank in the mid 2000s. A grand jury was convened in Boston. A prosecutor from the Criminal Division’s counter-terrorism division originally handled it, but the probe morphed into a tax case and was transferred at some point to the department’s Tax Division.
The case was linked to the royal family in Saudi Arabia, a powerful U.S. ally. The bank’s corporate parent is Dar Al-Maal Al-Islami Trust, known as DMI Trust, which was founded by Saudi prince Mohammed Al-Faisal Al-Saud
The Justice Department has declined to comment about the settlement, both to the media and to Congress. Grassley wrote the department on Sept. 7 asking for information about the settlement, and in the House, Judiciary Committee member Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) has also made inquiries. The department has not responded to either member of Congress.
Grassley also got no answers from Monaco, who said she lacked knowledge to answer the senator. She said she was unable to give the names of the department officials who approved the settlement. The Tax Division handled the matter.
“I want to make sure the department’s not trying to hide something,” Grassley said. “The silence on this issue of not issuing a press release I think kind of runs afoul with the claim that this administration is going to be very transparent.”
Later, he said: “Well, would [the silence] be possibly because the department got a bad deal, and they are trying to hide it?”
When asked by Grassley if she would give him a copy of the non-prosecution agreement, Monaco hedged. “I will absolutely go back and ensure we get a response to your letter and provide whatever information is appropriate to provide to you and the committee,” she said.
The DMI Trust was linked to several Muslim Brotherhood leaders. One was Switzerland-based businessman Yassin Qadi, who came under investigation in the U.S. for financing al-Qaeda, an allegation he has denied. Former Sudanese leader Hassan al-Turabi, an Islamist who gave al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden a base in Khartoum in the 1990s, spent a decade on DMI’s board. A spiritual leader of the Brotherhood, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Al-Jazeera television show host who has expressed support for suicide bombings, also served as an early DMI adviser.
Grassley knows better. A non-prosecution agreement for tax crimes is a taxpayer’s “return information” under 26 U.S.C. § 6103(b)(2)(A). Employees and officers of the United States–that would include lawyers in the Tax Division and the National Security Division of the DOJ–are barred from disclosing such information under section 6103(a). Violations of section 6103(a) are subject to civil damage actions (26 U.S.C. § 7431) and criminal penalties (26 U.S.C. § 7213). Typical political grandstanding by Sen. Grassley.