Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren is blaming the GOP for allowing the Islamic State to sell oil to fund its terror operations by holding up the confirmation of a key Obama appointee chosen to go after the group’s oil wealth and funding resources.
The Massachusetts senator, who many in her caucus wanted to run for president, used a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on oil and terrorism to make her case for the swift confirmation of the White House nominee, Adam Szubin, to become the Treasury’s leading counterterrorism official.
“Despite the importance of attacking the financial positions of ISIS, the Republican leadership has been holding up Adam Szubin’s nominations for nearly eight months,” Warren said. “If we are serious about taking on ISIS, we need to aggressively target its use of international sanctions to sell oil and move money around.”
A vote on Szubin’s confirmation is being held up in the Banking Committee. On Wednesday, the panel’s chairman, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said he wouldn’t hold a vote until next year.
“We’re not going to vote now,” Shelby said after being asked. “We’re going home for Christmas.”
Many of Obama’s nominees who haven’t been confirmed likely will have to be renominated in the new year, per federal rules.
“The undersecretary is responsible for combating terrorist financing, and he is the U.S. government’s chief enforcer of our financial sanctions against countries like Iran, Syria and Sudan,” Warren said before the energy committee Thursday. “It is an absolutely critical position, and one that plays a key role in disrupting ISIS fighters.”
“Mr. Szubin is impeccably qualified for this position. He’s worked at the Treasury Department for over a decade under both Democratic and Republican administrations,” she added, asking members of an expert panel testifying what they thought.
“I absolutely think he would aid in our fight against ISIS. I have had the privilege of working with Adam Szubin for a number of years … he would be an enormously effective leader,” said Peter Harrell, a senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security.
Experts on the panel also noted that the Islamic State’s use of oil money to fund its operations has been difficult to target because it primarily uses cash.
