US Attorney General disbands DOJ’s kleptocracy task force, curtails AML and corruption work  

New US attorney general Pam Bondi has disbanded the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Task Force KleptoCapture and refocused the criminal division’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) unit and money laundering and asset recovery section to tackle cartels and transnational crime organisations (TCO). Bondi assumed her role on Wednesday and issued a memorandum making sweeping changes to DOJ work streams and priorities, first reported by Bloomberg Law.

Bondi also disbanded the National Security Division’s corporate enforcement unit, which has taken some high-profile actions. This includes prosecuting cement manufacturer Lafarge, which in 2022, pleaded guilty to supporting terrorist organisations in Syria when it paid them protection money.

Jodi Vitorre, professor of practice and co-chair of the global politics and security programme at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, observed: “[Bondi] has significantly constrained within the Department of Justice its willingness to go after the FCPA and the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) violations.”

“She has also moved some of the individuals — and this was part of the DOJ purge even before she got there — who had worked on issues such as the FCPA and the FARA.”

The 2019 “Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election”, known as the Mueller report, was to a large extent about FARA issues and foreign agents and powers assisting the current president’s campaign, Vittori said.

“Current events in this field seem to be going pretty fast,” she added, and while this development came under the Department of Justice and not the Treasury, the link between the two would be critical in terms of reducing its appetite to detect and prosecute financial crimes, she added.

Georgetown is one of the biggest feeder schools for government roles in the Treasury, foreign service, anti-terrorism, and financial crime roles. Some students, the next generation of talent for these agencies, have already had job offers rescinded, Vittori said.