State Department Ignores Mandatory Deadline on Assad Corruption Report
Lawmakers and Syrian human-rights advocates worry that this is another concession to Iran.
Lawmakers and Syrian human-rights advocates worry that this is another concession to Iran.
T he State Department on Tuesday disregarded a statutorily mandated deadline to release a report detailing Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s net worth and his family’s kleptocratic business empire. The decision not to release the report prompted fears that the Biden administration is going to extreme lengths to avoid disrupting the ongoing Iran nuclear talks, as Assad is one of Iran’s most important proxies in the region.
Last year’s annual defense-authorization bill stipulated that the secretary of state must submit to Congress a report detailing the Syrian regime’s wealth, and that this report be posted on a publicly accessible federal website. Representative Claudia Tenney, the Republican Study Committee member who introduced the measure, said at the time that “it is important to monitor the rampant corruption to ensure that funds are not directed to terrorist groups and malign activities.”
Assad’s family is known to preside over massive state-controlled conglomerates that control everything from telecoms to energy, and even a vast illicit-narcotics enterprise.
The deadline for the report’s release, which was Tuesday, came at a delicate time for the administration, which is trying to salvage the long-stalled Iran negotiations as Tehran demands an end to the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization.
That has led some lawmakers to question whether State is deliberately pulling its punches on Assad as it continues to seek a return to the 2015 Iran deal. The administration has previously faced criticism for watering down U.S. sanctions targeting the Assad regime and for declining to adequately dissuade other countries from seeking normalization with Syria.
Representative John Curtis (R., Utah), in a statement to National Review, said he worries that State’s decision not to publish the report is a deliberate concession to Iran.
“This failure echoes past actions by Obama’s lack of resolve towards Assad in order to appease the regime’s sponsors in Iran while negotiating the Iran nuclear deal. If the Biden administration missed this deadline to once again appease Iran, Congress will find out, hold hearings, and investigate,” said Curtis, who is the co-chairman of the Caucus against Foreign Corruption and Kleptocracy.
The White House has said it wants to focus on combating international corruption, acknowledging a link between the kleptocratic practices of authoritarian regimes and “pernicious foreign influence” work that undermines democracies. And throughout Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Department of Justice has worked to seize the assets of Kremlin-linked oligarchs.
But the missed deadline suggests that the State Department has a noteworthy blind spot when it comes to Syria.
Bassam Barabandi, a Syrian analyst who defected from the country’s diplomatic corps, told NR that State’s move shows that the administration doesn’t “want to make any steps that might make Iran uncomfortable.” He said that putting together an unclassified report should have been relatively simple, given the abundance of publicly available information on Assad’s corruption. He added that he believes the missed deadline means that State will never publish the report.
The State Department did not provide a response to National Review’s repeated requests for comment about why it did not publish the report yesterday.
The Assad regime is also staunchly aligned with Moscow, which in 2015 opened a military base in Syria. The report’s delay could also represent a missed opportunity to go after some of the Kremlin’s key allies.
Representative Joe Wilson (R., S.C.) said the Assad wealth report could shed light on the regime’s dealings in Russia.
“This report is essential to highlight the global nexus of kleptocracy, authoritarianism, and corruption, and may shed light on the Assad regime’s dealings with Vladimir Putin in Russia and oligarchs connected to his regime,” Wilson told NR.
Key Assad relatives are reported to have tens of millions of dollars tied up in Moscow real-estate investments. According to Barabandi, Russia is a popular destination for illicitly obtained Syrian funds, as foreign money receives less scrutiny there than in other popular destinations, such as Dubai.
Joel Rayburn, a Trump appointee who served as special envoy for Syria, pointed out in a tweet that the Assad report’s absence fits into the administration’s broader strategic neglect of Syria-related issues. He wrote that the failure to deliver the report “makes no sense,” adding that Vladimir Putin intends to use Syria as a resource in his invasion of Ukraine.