Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Trump admin says Trump family's World Liberty Financial can launch a bank

Transcript

Trump admin says Trump family's World Liberty Financial can launch a bank · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: The Trump's family is enjoying yet another business victory, this
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: time thanks to the Trump administration. On Friday, the family's
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: crypto venture World Liberty Financial, announced it had received approval
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: from a Trump appointed official to become a bank, giving
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the firm broader access to the very financial system it
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: was ostensibly founded to challenge. Now you'll remember, World Liberty
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Financial accounts for a huge chunk of Trump's recent financial windfall,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: earning him more than half a billion dollars just last year.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Firm CEO Zach Woodcoff, Steve Woodcoff's son, dismiss concerns of
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: conflicts of interest, telling the Wall Street Journal quote, we
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: answered all of the regulator's questions, and we accepted the
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: significant obligations and ongoing scrutiny to come with the national charter.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: If we were looking for less oversight, we would not
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: have chosen federal supervision. Hofstra University law professor James Sample
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: joins us. Now Michael Feinberg is back with us. James,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: can you put this in plain speak for US?
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Sure? Similar bank charters have been approved for other bank institutions.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: The variable here is ownership. The Trump and the Trump
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: family owns thirty eight percent of world financial world liberty financial.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: So the applicant that company was applying to an agency
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: that is headed by an individual that Trump appointed who
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: can be removed at will, especially after the Supreme Court
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: decision and Trump Vslaughter, and that organization is approving the charter.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: The only oversight that exists is now through the Attorney General, who,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: as you just established in prior segments, is essentially acknowledged
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: and is at least telling the truth now that he
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: views himself as the president's attorney.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you for walking us through what would be every
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: check and every balanced Michael. The other part here is
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the fact that we're talking about crypto. Crypto is decentralized
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: currency for outsiders, people who are pushing back against traditional systems.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: How hard is it to trace then the money that
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: is in that system.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Significantly harder than it would be for a normal traditional
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: financial system. There is a reason that criminals tend to
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: prefer crypto over using a normal wire service or a
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: standard bank. We've seen this used by terrorists, we've seen
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: this used by foreign spies, and we've seen this used
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: by run of the mill criminal enterprises. The very concept
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: of crypto was to create a sort of non state
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: backed currency exchange of sorts. It's not entirely clear whether
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: the designers of crypto intended for it to be a
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: payment system or an investment opportunity, and as a result,
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: it sort of has the worst features of both. But
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: we do know that it's early adopter did so specifically
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: so they could obfuscate their transactions to a degree that
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: was not possible under traditional financial systems.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we have this one story about crypto and
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: the bank, and then you have this story that I
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: want to get your take out, which is the Treasury
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Department just ended ownership reporting rules for US companies. Quote.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Secretary of Besson argued that the rules, which were designed
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: to combat money laundering and other financial crimes, were quote
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: a burdensome reporting requirement. Your reaction.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Michael probably is the real expert on this. So, if
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: you've watched the Jack Ryan series, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: he was an analyst. The fictional character was an analyst
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: at an organization called Finsen. That is a finan that
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: is on an arm of the Treasury that, among other things,
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: tracks the actual owners of shell companies. So what this
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: all boils down to Alicia is that shell companies formed
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: in the United States no longer have to report who
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: their actual owner to the United States government. They also
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: went further and this regulation will destroy all of the
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: data on ownership of these shell companies that had already
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: been collected. So if you think about who is the
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: pro money laundering camp out there, what is the constituency
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: that is in favor of undoing anti money laundering statutes?
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Now there is a paperwork aspect to this, and there
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: are some small businesses who allegedly were caught up in burden,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: some paperwork that could be fixed. But this isn't turning
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: off the lights, it's ripping the wiring out of the walls.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: And why would you destroy the evidence of ownership of
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: shell companies that you already have in the database? Storing
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: data costs next to nothing. Who are you serving when
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: you do that? The questions answer themselves.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Michael Feinberg, crusis.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: For criminals, largely white collar criminals, be because they are
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: the ones who can afford to go through the entire
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: process and logistic burden of setting up a shell company.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: But make no mistake, I mean there's also foreign intelligence
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: services and foreign terrorist organizations that do the same thing.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: I can only assume, based on what we've seen in
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: terms of other policy decisions from this Justice Department, that
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: letting terrorists and spies off the hook is just the
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: necessary cost of doing business to help those who help
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: the White House. There's no justification for this whatsoever, except
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: to help white collar criminals evade the responsibility of their actions.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Worth noting before we go, in reaction to what you said,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Besson explicitly said that getting rid of this rule would
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: not harm national security. According to your analysis, that would
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: seem not to be so. Muchel Heinberke always good to
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: have you, Thank you, James, and to ask you to
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: stick with us.