The Senate Intelligence Committee has requested information from the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on 45 key witnesses in its Russia investigation, but it has not asked for anything on the Trumps or Jared Kushner or their businesses.
“Overall, the committee’s approach to follow-the-money issues has been wholly deficient and in my view, does not adhere to the whole principle of what we’re supposed to be about, which is counterintelligence,” Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat on the committee, told BuzzFeed News. “If you want to compromise people, you do it with dough.”
Wyden declined to comment on specific requests to Treasury, but said the the committee is making a “major mistake” in not prioritizing financial issues, suggesting it could leave a hole in the the findings of Congress’ leading probe into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
In a series of letters sent to Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network last year, the Senate Intelligence Committee requested financial information on 45 people or entities, including former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, as well as many of those involved in a now-infamous meeting in Trump Tower between campaign officials and Russians, including Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, music publicist Rob Goldstone, Emin and Aras Agalarov, Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, and translator Anatoli Samachornov ...
Missing from the committee’s requests, however, are key figures from the Trump Tower meeting who have spent hours with the committee in closed-door interviews: Kushner, a former real estate developer and now a senior White House adviser; and Trump Jr., who worked on his father’s campaign ...
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North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, the committee chairman, declined to comment last week. Asked in January about the omission of names such as Kushner and Trump Jr. in requests to the Treasury Department, Burr said, “I've never said we didn't request information from them," but declined to elaborate.
BuzzFeed News reports the committee also has had trouble getting FinCEN to hand over the information it has requested, and Senator Wyden, who also serves as Ranking Member on the Senate Finance Committee, has been wielding what power he can to get Treasury to cooperate.
In its Dec. 7 letter, the committee told Treasury it was “concerned” that FinCEN hadn’t responded to the committee’s Aug. 11 letter requesting financial documents.
In May, Wyden placed a hold on the nomination of Sigal Mandelker to be Treasury’s under secretary of terrorism and financial intelligence, blocking the nomination until June, when he said Treasury had begun sending documents that would “be sufficient to start following the money." Wyden has since placed a hold on the nomination of Isabel Patelunas to be assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis in an attempt to get FinCEN to turn over documents to the Finance Committee.
In addition, Wyden has expressed concern over Intelligence Committee investigators' lack of financial expertise. They have "accomplished careers in the military, intelligence community, and the broader national security world — but not finance," BuzzFeed News explains.
Senate Investigators Have Steered Clear of Trump Family Members’ Finances in Russia Investigation (BuzzFeed News)