It was hosted by the council of attorney relations and ran just ver an hour. Good morning everyone. Welcome to the capitol Fund Relations and the future of anticorruption. Im shannon, and senior fellow at the capitol as well as the director of Civil Societies that is hosting this event. We have seen in recent years, recognition of corruption, serious. Breath to the nations that it occurs and u. S. Foreign policy. Corruption towards investment nd commerce, intensifies and drains Development Dollars and prevents dollars by undermining the functioning of institutions. And corruption erodes trust in their governments and drives em towards radical insurgencies that threatens our count try. It is crucial that the United States address these threats. This means and requires evaluating past approaches what has and hasnt worked and working with constitutional partners and these issues we are going to get into today. We have an Impressive Group of speakers, those that have been on the front lines of developing these policies. Include former and government firms, legal experts and leaders of nongovernmental organizations. We are going to start off this morning hearing from senator cardin and he is instrumental and he is a long time advocate of a more asserttive approach of addressing corruption issues abroad. We look forward toe discussions and welcome the senator up to the stage. [applause] snardsnards good. We dont need to go through it. But he has been speaking about these issues for many years, first at the state level in maryland and in the house and the senate. Let me start asking you about your 30 years, close to 0 years in washington, you have dealt with a lot of Foreign Policy challenges, dealt with wars, and refugee and all sorts of issues and amid all of these, where does corruption rank . Senator thank you very much for holding this series of discussions dealing with corruption. You have to be careful, because there are outside forces. We scheduled this about a month ago and we had snow and today im here to try to get away from a Nuclear Fallout in the United States senate. [laughter] senator there are outside forces working here. But corruption, you talk about my experiences. When i first came to congress, i got involved in the helskinki commission because i saw the human rights and the values of america. Americas strength is in its iss values. What we stand for. And when this period of history is recorded, im certain the success of america in bringing down the soviet union and advancing democracies around the world will be the values we stood for. Not our military. Our values. Our values are human rights and anticorruption. That is what we stand for as a nation. Housecalled to the white to a National SecurityCommittee Meeting ony corruption. Corruption is the cancer spreading that is affecting the welfare of the Global Community. It leads to crime and syndicates. There is a void where terrorists can thrive. It is a circumstance in which we find that when we do not fight corruption, we have governments that are not stable. We do see the protests going around the world. People want an honest government. It is robbing people of the wealth of their countries. We can give you many, many examples. Recent. Ite the most we are combating a problem in of famine. Rica millions of people are at risk. When you look at transparency, and index on corruption, they countries. This is a famine that has caused conflict and lack of governments. Its not nature. That is not why people in sudan and south somalia are starving. We have to deal with this. There will be more wars, less and it will not only be americas National Security. It will be the globe. Tonnon let me turn legislation on this. This is the anniversary of the passed in 1977, the first foray of the United States into facing corruption abroad. Per u. S. T u. S. Participation, what achievements have been made . Where are we lacking . Where is the record . Shannon i smile sen. Cardin i smile little bit because ive been in other countries, companies where they tell me that there is a quota for u. S. Government because they cannot be involved in corruption. Question we have made strides in fighting corruption. The challenges are terrible. Today, we are facing a Global Community where there is a question as how important corruption really is. The number one example is russia. Lubricant thathe allows mr. Putin to do what he is doing. He is a master at deception. So, he creates problems around the world so his population has this nationalist view about putins leadership that allows him to stay in power. Legitimate, the progress we are making in fighting corruption is compromised. So, yes, u. S. Leadership has made a difference. But we still have a long way to go. We have lost momentum. Russia is moving their foot print their footprint will be on europe. We saw their attack here in the night is ace. We saw what they are doing in the middle east. We saw their attack here in the United States. We have a challenge ahead of us. Shannon we have had some achievements, some progress, perhaps some back slipping. What should the United States due to address that . I know you just introduced a bill. Talk about that. It was passed globally, and my colleague, senator mccain, the two of us have championed legislation on capitol hill. Easy. Not our friends in the state department do not Like Congress getting involved. Universal, whether it is a democratic or republican administration, they would prefer we go away and not deal with us. We said, look, we are going to corruption,ght on first to do with the tragedies, but we had a face to put on what putin was doing. We said, if you are involved in gross violations of human rights, corruption, etc. , and your country does not take action against you, we will not give you the benefit of america. We will not allow you to visit assetsntry or hide your in our economy. That was passed. It was passed not just in the United States. It was passed in european countries. It has gotten a good amount of international attention. Now we can use these tools anywhere in the world. Me, people who are corruption what to visit their wealth. They dont want their wealth in their own country. It is making progress. Yesterday, i filed, along with senator purdue, a corruption index bill that will allow us to do what can be done in trafficking and persons that would document how every country is doing in their campaign against corruption by giving you can seegs, so how you are relative to the rest of the world, developing standards to fight corruption, transparency, those types of issues that are important to fight corruption, and then using that information in our different agencies of government, particularly our activities. Stance same thing with development goals. We were talking about that before. States, through our leadership, we are able to get the International Community working together with the United Nations to put Good Governance as one of our sustainable goals through the United Nations. Shannon if your bill goes forward, if it gets passed, it seems like a lot will depend on the agencies. There are those who worry that the Trump Administration, this is not a priority for them. And some of the leadership may not be there. What is your take . Sen. Cardin that was a pretty diplomatic way of putting it. [laughter] sen. Cardin the Trump Administration has made this much more difficult. For many, many reasons. I will try to be concise. I could really talk a long time about it. There was a highlight this week when President Trump met with president cc of president sisi of egypt. There are a lot of Strategic Issues mean to talk about, but clearly reforms in egypt need to be in the forefront of that discussion. Otherwise, you are again going to run into the problems of whether this government can maintain stability in a very important country in the middle east. President trump never mentioned that. Our values have to be front and center. It was not. We saw secretary tillerson talking about president aside , saying it isd perfectly ok for him to stay if the people of syria wants them. And we saw the horrific use of chemical weapons again by against innocent civilian populations. Of course, you should not be using chemicals at all. That lacked of moral clarity, clarity isf moral very damaging to our ability to dance these issues. Let me compare that to ambassador haley, who has been claritylear about moral issues. Anduld urge President Trump secretary tillerson to take an example from secretary from ambassador haley. Her comments about rush were very refreshing. And it was not Diplomatic Area but sometimes we have to say those things. Or comments about russia were very refreshing. To have the public statements on anticorruption and Good Governance. We have the problems of credibility of the Trump Administration. Aen you endorse fake news as strategy for Foreign Policy or domestic policy and you meet with foreign leaders to advance the governments, your credibility is much weekend. That is very true of the Trump Administration. A decision you are not going to divest yourself of your personal wealth as resident of the United States, as president of the United States, you can determine what is in conflict and what is not, let alone the violation of the enormous claws of the enoulmentson the the constitution. Approvals by the chinese authorities after years of fighting whose interests are being advanced . Or personaltates business interests . That makes it very difficult to stand up for Good Governance and anticorruption. Or on transparency. The president not releasing his tax returns. Transparency is one of the key strategies we are advancing one of the first bills in this congress sidetracking the provisions that senator lugar and i worked on on transparencies so poor countries could get the value of their minerals putting that on hold. All that compromises and lastly, when you present your priorities for the budget, the priorities you see for our country and you say we could reduce our International Development programs by 36 , and american needs to be there to all ofries develop weekends United States leadership and theres only one United States of america. There is only one country that can do what we can do and that has been severely damaged. Let me follow up on that. If our executive is not going to lead on this, is there anyone else to can pick up the mantle . Sen. Cardin it is very grim, but its not that grim. [laughter] supposed to im not share what happens in the meetings of the Senate ForeignRelations Committee, so im going to violate that a little bit and that we have meetings with World Leaders and they meet with our committee. ,e had that with president sisi the day after he met with President Trump. Just about every member of the Senate ForeignRelations Committee used their time in questioning president sisi on human rights. Just about every single member. And i think that was to counter oft was apparent by the lack that discussion or reporting of that discussion with President Trump. So, there is great interest. In the congress, we have great champions from both sides of the aisle. We had bipartisan support for the bill that we did. It was john mccain who insisted that anticorruption be part of this. Theres a strong interest in congress to advance these issues and we recognize both democrats and republicans, we have a challenge of his administration. We are working together to counter that. Shannon great. I am going to open this up to questions from our members in a few minutes. Because the president is today meeting with resident xi from from president xi china. We talked about china as a place of deepseated corruption. But when you think about our relationship with china sometimes a partner, often a competitor, and how you prioritize corruption and what would you have happened today . What would be useful in the u. S. China u. S. China relationship . It was encouraged that the president bring these issues up in his meeting. We had a bipartisan effort to encourage this to be on the agenda. I dont want to disappoint you, but the president did not share his agenda with me. I dont know how transparent it will be, their conversations. Disappointinglly things about secretary tillerson is that he is not sharing a lot of what he is doing with the American People and the Global Community, so we dont know what is happening. The megaphone is important here. So, it would be very helpful if the president did something visibly to show that human rights is on the agenda. Tillerson ismr. Going to be in russia. Will you have meetings with the opposition . Thats a very visible signee is open to the human rights agenda is share. We will be watching to see what transpires in the privacy of the meeting, but also what is broadcast. That is important. This cannot be kept private. There are too many fighting around the world. We met with courageous leaders he is entitled to know that we are fighting on his behalf, what he has gone through in russia. I think i differ with china doing good things to fight corruption. I dont think they are. We have notent xi seen a continuation of that. If anything, we have seen a retreat. It is more difficult for people to express themselves. Is a country that desperately needs to get back on track on reform, and they are going in the wrong direction right now. Shannon let me open it up to your questions. Onember, this is a meeting the record. The microphone will come around. State your name and your question please. [indiscernible] thank you for your leadership on these issues. Andtalked about leadership gave some examples of how there are some problems with the Current Administration. You did not say anything about the federal conflict interest have been which we told does not apply to the president. If that is true, doesnt that set a bad example for the united a standard that permits the chief executive . And if that is a problem, what is the solution to that . Sen. Cardin i think the federal conflict of interest does apply to the present, but let me explain that. I was part of the congress that tosed these laws in response some immediate concerns we had with the members of congress, etc. What we didnt want to be challenged was the president s authority to act, and therefore we did not want the ability to challenge the effectiveness of the president of the United States to speak definitively with the authority that he has. That is the reason he was given this leeway on being able to challenge his actions. To apply. Icts corruption statutes apply to the president of the United States. Clause is pretty clear. There is no question about that. I am concerned about his domestic conflicts. I am. There will be questions whether his office is being used for fromnal gain when personal gain. When his children traveled with all of the protection that is appropriate because of their Family Connection to the president of the United States and their vulnerabilities, that is intimidating to people that they are negotiating with on business deals. That to me is not appropriate. That is why we have the tradition in this country that every president has divested or to up blind trusts in order avoid the appearance of conflict or conflict situations. President trump has made the office of the president vulnerable because of his refusal to do that. If you wanted to be secretary of state, you had to divest. As he did. As present as secretary tillerson did. The president did not. That is just wrong. I understand the technical aspects of the statutes. But conflicts of light to every person in public life and the clause clearly applies to be president. Sarah chase from the carnegie endowment. To follow up on that question because of the credibility gap is so important to the United States ability to lead in this domain, understand where you are on the substance conflict of interest, divestiture, tax sen. Cardin tax returns. Thank you. Releasing tax returns. To achieveen able remarkable bipartisan consensus on moving some of these issues forward with respect to the international sphere. Have you begun engaging in conversations with your friends from the other side of the aisle on the application to the United States so some of these things which may have been tradition in the past become law and the law is eligible. There are some emolument cases at the moment. We have never been down this path before. We do not know about enforcement. Senator blumenthal is looking at different ways in which we may be able to develop standing, and he has been working on that. So, we are all working with him to see whether there is a way we can avoid this. I followed the resolution in congress to avoid this problem beforeold the president and after he took the oath of office it is the sense of congress he has created a problem. A has to corrected to avoid constitutional crisis. We are trying to weigh in and a way that will avoid a constitutional crisis. But we know ultimately enforcement can be done by the house of representatives. We do not want to go down that route. That is the ultimate enforcement. We understand that would cause a crisis in america. We are trying to avoid that if we possibly can, to find ways we can enforce these issues. In the meantime, i have it on notice our representatives about humansonument emily emoulment concerns. I want to make sure that there are no violations of the emou lment clause being facilitated that we are to close from the elections and it was such an unorthodox way that President Trump was elected and republicans do not want to feed into the scenario of the dealer the legitimacy of his election. I can do you privately republicans say he should have released his tax returns. He should have set up a blind trust. We have not gotten to where we can Work Together to solve the problems. Anatoly is senator, thank you for being here today and your work on behalf of people around the world fighting corruption. I am originally from ukraine, so corruption is a sore topic for me and my fellow citizens. I now live in lancaster, pennsylvania. Ofruption is not at the top the agenda of the people who live around me. Do you think corruption overseas gets enough attention among the general public and the u. S. . If not, what should we do, or what should we do anything to raise the awareness of people in this country about corruption overseas . Sen. Cardin great question. In the United States, most americans do not believe that their lives have been adversely impacted by corruption. The do not understand Global Economics or the use of military in these types of issues do not hit them directly. Youresolutely rap absolutely right. You are from ukraine. You understand this. I was with the people and i saw what was happening. What happened in ukraine was not a fight between russia and europe for the loyalty or the desires of ukraine. It was the ukrainians wanting to get rid of a corrupt system. It was a Popular Uprising against corruption. What happened in romania. 500,000 turned out to fight corruption. What is happening in russia. It hitshit home when you. And americans have not been able to identify with the urgency of fighting corruption. We talk about this a lot. Do you have any suggestions on how we can get this done . Its very frustrating. Theres a lot of energy out there. You may have noticed since the november election there a lot more people engaged in the legal system and want to get involved. We are talking about that. If you have suggestions i mean it let us know. There is a group that i talk with for three hours and at the end of the discussion we are still asking, how can we make a difference . I think when you look at corruption in russia, there is a question whether we have a system in on capitol hill to investigate that honestly. That is why the mayor can people want an independent commission to investigate what russia was doing in the United States. They do not believe that there is an honest system. I am not trying to discredit what is being done by the Senate Intelligence committee. Lot better if we had an independent commission. If we did, i think we could communicate more with the American People about how we are fighting corruption. Good morning. Thank you to cfr for hosting this today. One of the things that we have societyating as a civil since the election is what kind of strategy we pursue for anticorruption. Do we continue to fight agressively, or is that riskier strategy and things can be rolled back. Or do we hunkered down and hope on hope that things can hold until the status quo is more favorable. And the second question is, within congress, one of the things we talked about is trying to go at the republican side from a security perspective, since that tends to play better than ape your moral or Development Argument play better than ape your moral or Development Argument. Thank you. A very easy i have question free. Get behind the bill i filed yesterday with senator purdue. And i mean that. That would evaluate how every nation in the country every nation in the world is doing fighting corruption. Quickly over pretty trafficking persons. It was not too long ago that americans did not think trafficking of persons was an important issue. They didnt. They did not think prostitution and trafficking was all that important to their everyday life. And then the congress of the uniteds got involved, and all , it was congress saying this is modern day slavery and the United States leadership is desperately needed. We tried to put some faces on it. As victims were being seen criminals rather than victims. We change that attitude. Here in the United States, because everyone thought trafficking was third world nations. Where do they want to go to . Where is the profit motive . We recognized we were a destination country. We recognized we have trafficking within the United States. We had problems ourselves. The report not only a value with every other country in the world. It evaluates the United States and the corruption here in america. Transparency and the international report. Was not know want. We were number 18. There are things that we can do better than we are doing today. Are trying tot we do. Yes, in trafficking, there are a it is the u. S. Tip report that is known globally today and it was the Gold Standard until it was somewhat tarnished in evaluations under the obama administration. It is still the Gold Standard. And we want to make this effort a bipartisan effort and we are going to get resistance from the state department. It. No mistake about i admire greatly are dedicated andign Service Officers what they do for america. They dont like to have another word and put on them. They dont like to have to raise issues that makes their life more complicated. But fighting corruption is so important, as is fighting traffic. Incould use your help getting this legislation done. It is not a slam dunk at all. It is going to be an uphill battle and we need your help. Thank you, shannon, for organizing this, and senator cardin, thank you introducingyou mind yourself . Oh, sorry. Eric olson, from the Woodrow Wilson center. One of the things i think you are doing is elevating this as an important issue, which it thatnot get that status much in our foreign aid. And i think the approach that youre taking is really about shining a light on problems and naming and shaming and bringing problems ofc the corruption around the world. I think that that is terrific. Another approach the u. S. Government has tried is to strengthen the institutions of government so they can do that more effectively. It is remarkable what they have been able to do to battle corruption. Tot is really the exception the rule. And u. S. Foreign assistance, worked for a long time even the Reagan Administration funded programs in Central America in the 1980s wone no one won Central America by large. Doing in this hemisphere and around the world . At the end of the day, they are the ones who have to do the hard work of holding their officials accountable. How you do that is a real challenge. I do think it is important that foreign aid look at that issue more directly. I agree with you. It is hard to see how that could advance if the president s skinny budget became law. A 36 cut 36 in the state department budget. We have major commitments that i that i and help in food support and we have a small amount of money that goes to the programs you are talking about, democracy and protecting institutions and in many parts of the world we have virtually neededurces where they the most. In africa, we had very little dollars on democracy. Africanme i visited an country, the minister asks, can we get more democracy money . We can use it. To reverseng to have what the president has come in with. Congress will not pass the budget, but if they use that as the yardstick, a 5 cut looks good. We can some ideas on how make that institution more relevant to the current needs. The interesting point about our hemisphere is we have almost every country in our hemisphere are democrat countries. We have a couple exceptions make no mistake about it and in those exceptions, corruption is widespread. Venezuela is closed to a failed state. Venezuelang with opposition people to see what we can do today. They are extremely corrupt. We have to deal with that in relation to a failed democracy. The charter is appropriate. And of course, cuba is not a democratic country. They have widespread corruption in cuba. We have to deal with that. I was with the foreign minister from qb yesterday. They are fighting corruption. The northern cartels are notorious for how they are able to infiltrate societies, Police Officers and judges and how the drug trade is facilitated by these criminal elements. Youve got to fight that. Ive been in the northern trying the. The leaders are really trying to fight corruption. They are bringing in outside help. But the drug cartels, the gang is so integrated into their way of life there we have real, real challenge is to route this out. It is causing extreme violence and migration, which is affecting our entire hemisphere. Certainly affecting the United States. Your point is well taken. Vice President Biden initiated a program for the northern trying to. I strongly supported it. It was not as transformational as we needed. Think, to invest even more to try to transform these countries in fighting corruption. The nasa . Great shannon the nests of. Anessa. Great. Wanted to take rather more specifically, there is an interest in the application of the act, and what happens, i know for venezuelans, they start with the corruption, highlighting the corruption of the regime is more and more potent in tipping that perhaps. It resonates more. You can see it on social media. U. S. s exactly would the foreign aid, for instance help implement rule of law, which arguably is a cultural problem, not just the regime . Youre absolutely right about that. Venezuela is extremely frustrating because the will of the people is not being adhered to. There is now even an effort to block b parliament from doing anything. It is a very dangerous situation, what is happening. Brink ofry is on the failure. The humanitarian crisis is getting worse and worse. It is an urgent issue. Countrywo thirds of the of the countries of our hemisphere are prepared to take action. We just have to get a few more countries to act and i think we can take rather dramatic action when it comes to venezuela. How do you implement reform . It is not easy. Payinghave safety by bribes. The hotel i was staying at, i was shocked a really nice area. They pay bribes. They are bribes. How do you bring that to an end . Its not easy to figure out how you do that. What we are suggesting is using the circumstances of the country that are not meeting norms, not our norms, but recognized norms for anticorruption, and how do we focus our other agencies including development and assistance, to bring about those changes . We get the information. We require the agencies to use that information. If you are not at an acceptable ourl, how do we target relationship with the country to bring about norms . We have done conditionality of foreign aid in the past, but it has not in it has been haphazard. Do. s what we are trying to we are trying to get back to a better level fighting corruption, recognizing this is not going to be quick. Its going to take time. At\ thank you, senator. I want to thank you for your remarks. What do you see as the way forward for the senate . What role it should play in the Current Administration . Is about as that difficult a question as how to Channel Energy to bring about change. Condition where the rules committee can determine what is done as long as they have a majority vote. They can move forward. The challenge in the house of representatives is twofold. They have a challenge of partisanship, and they now have a challenge that the Majority Party cannot have unity in their own party, causing the division. That could lead to more bipartisanship in the house , because i would hope it would be better for speaker ryan to work with democrats rather than the far right of his party. , that is, he could lose the speakership by doing that. Its not a symbol as it sounds. I worked with republicans on just about every issue. All of our committees, most of our committees, not all, work with comedy between the majority and minority. Senator corker and i go over everything before anything is done. We almost always reach consensus. Not always. Almost always reach consensus. Our members Work Together. This is a very sad day. And its not sad because the the Supreme Court nominee. It was because we did not agree to change the senate rules. If an individual senator can block legislation, thats wrong. That totuation, delay legislation, thats wrong. I get it. It takes is longer to learn things. Dayscognize there will be that democrats are the minority. There will be days republicans are the minority. Lets get these rules to make some sense. Thats what missing today. Its unilateral action. Its not like it just happened the day. It has been going on pretty dramatically for the the last 6 the last eight years. And its time for grownups to get together and leaders to lead and for us to figure out ways we can make the senate work the way it should work. Good morning, senator. Spca has ledthe remarkably to a series of international conventions, and similar laws in 150some countries. Since 1977 we have developed, as you indicated, a greater appreciation of the economic costs, how it contributes to crimes, and undercut the rule of law. My question is, arguably one of the most negative things we could do would be to repeal or pa,tantially dilute the fc and there are suggestions to that effect. My question is, do you see a sense of that, a likelihood of that in the congress and how would you react to that . Sen. Cardin i would think there would be strong resistance to repealing just the name of it. You are going to repeal foreign corrupt practices . [laughter] sen. Cardin i just dont think we would do that. Theres a greater danger we would weaken it or not enforce it, and that would be an area we would have to watch very closely. As President Trump talks about new trade arrangements with other countries, what we would like to see is just the opposite. Fornow that there is a need the United States to have a stronger position with our trading partners because we do not participate in corruption. So therefore, its have a better way to deal with governments and enterprises and how to deal with government procurement. And that should be part of the trade agenda. To go backwards and say we will set corrupt practices, that it is unacceptable practice to pay and get contracts congress would not move in that direction. Thank you so much. Thank you, senator cardin, for your leadership and for your eloquence and clarity in discussing these issues, and thanks so much, shannon. Work for the Organization Formerly known as transparency usa. The biggest obstacle to fighting corruption that i see is impunity. I grew up in india. Educationough the system and saw the opportunities available to me were so limited. One way to fight that impunity is to reduce the ability of corrupt officials to enjoy that. In the u. S. , we are a major enabler of that. We have the ability to set up a company or an entity without really knowing who derives in a fit from the entity. So, what leadership can we expect from this congress . Sen. Cardin thank you for that. This is an area under the jurisdiction of the Banking Committee. I have been working very closely with our counterparts on banking as to what we can how we can ordinate what they do on banking and what we do with Foreign Policy. This is one of the major issues they felt we needed to reform our laws in order to have a more vetting ofay for assets in the United States. There is need for reform. Some of the technical aspects were explained to me. I am fully on board trying to make the law more effective, weeding out those that are using these companies to hide illegal assets. You are right. It needs to be done, and we will work closely with the banking to mid the Banking Committee to see if we can get that done. Good morning and thank you, shannon. Following up on your comments, is there included in your legislation or somewhere away to use more robustly the tools we have and the Treasury Department and the Justice Department with the indictments to go after some of these National Leaders that have become so powerful and use that to their benefit . The answer is, yes, we have that in our legislation. It is somewhat vague in our legislation. We do require in our agency reporting a common agenda to work with our country. Everything you identify is very much in the Agency Coordination issue that we anticipate would be part of what we do. Then there needs to be oversight by congress. We arethe matters that pushing hard for an Hour Committee is oversight hearings. The Administration Last congress did things that they should not have done on trafficking. We called it out, and as a result, i think we made the corrections, and this year, the report is much more objective, as it should have been. The same thing needs to be done on corruption. If it becomes law, we need to bring in these agencies to make sure they are doing things that are consistent with the way things should be done. Shannon here. Senator cardin. I am a lifelong resident of maryland. I think i thank you for your maryland. In i wonder if there is an opportunity for the United States to use his leadership in organizations to perhaps lead from behind as the u. S. Loses a bit of the moral high ground on this issue, but help the rest of the world Pay Attention to the issue of traction. Sen. Cardin that synnex lapointe. Not just because you are a maryland are a marylander. Thats an excellent point. [laughter] as i mentioned earlier, i have spent a lot of time with the organization for and weurity cooperation really focused on and i corruption in the organization. That was one of our missions, human rights and Good Governance. We find at times, pragmatic decisions are made and corruption is not as high as it should be. International banking, we have had conversations about corruption. Conversations on these issues. If we dont raise it, it is unlikely it is going to get the attention that it me. I dont think that mr. Trump will be directing participants , i dont think that is the case. Hope that what happened under president obama on fighting corruption as National Security we need to get across to the Trump Administration that it is a national priority. That will help us make up for their ways of dealing with this. That performance, you can accomplish what the country needs to do. Its an excellent point. Thank you. One of my jobs was to organize a press conference to suspend a 100 million grant. Putins daughter was that gotn organization it. I would like to think that it played some small role i heard ambassador hayley talking potentially but you and or form. They weres going to funding looking at the yuan reform agenda, are you going to look at successful examples like the global fund, where i think you have seen a lot of suspensions of grants, ministers of health run in jail . Is thrown in jail question is that something you look at . Thank you. i will bring that to ambassador attention. I think she is under extreme pressure to reduce budgets. Thats unfortunate. I am all for efficient budgets. I think we can do things for less cost and we do today. But to have a certain goal is a number without rationale behind it is wrong. Our participation in international organizations, the budget numbers they will get from omb are going to be unrealistic. It is going to be forcing them to do things in the name of reform that will really be counterproductive. But, yes, we will do that. I was impressed by ambassador that in her conversations she had. We had it conversation just recently. She was not just trying to put the United States out of compliance with our responsibilities. That would prevent us from participating. And she is not attempting to with draw from and to withdraw from any organizations. Yet. Not there she really wants to understand how these organizations work first. What she is looking at is inefficient missions correct them or stop them. Thats not an unrealistic position to take. Obviously most missions done by the United Nations are critically important. Peacekeeping. We dont want to and that. No gatesemember and bill clinton testified when billsaid bill gates and clinton testified when they said if youre not going to fight corruption, pull out of the country. As much as we want to help, you are not helping the country by funding corruption. An alternative, that is always the best way. If you cant, you have to make hard decisions. Shannon we have time for one more question. Work for a hedge fund. Shannon, thank you for organizing today, and senator cardin, thank you for your leadership. At the definition for corruption has gotten narrower over time. United,es like citizens with obama having the First Organization to advance his agenda, and now the make america a Great Foundation doing those advocacy campaigns in a bunches won to promote his presidency, i does that affect your work fighting corruption in other countries . Sen. Cardin thank you for the question. Look, i think america has compromised its effectiveness globally in fighting the principal values that made our country great. That is Good Governance. It is we the people. Builtstem was understanding there are individuals and power, there are checks and balances, no one is above the law. We have seen how it has worked over the history of our country, how checks and balances have worked. And an independent congress. I dont know too many countries that have an independent congress. Priority on the importance of the individual, and i could not agree with you more. Citizens united was one of the most disappointing decisions. Come, from other and they askaders, how to have fundraising, i say do not do them like we did this. Decision bydamental the Supreme Court that we were rights ofrotect the the businesses over the right of the individual. That we, the people, still control. As we have seen around the world, we the people will not tolerate corruption. They wont. There will be a time with a run the streets, including in the United States. They will not tolerate corruption. We have to make sure that we put in place those systems that will make that. Its very frustrating with President Trump. I really did not think the people would allow him to win the presidency without releasing his tax returns and be present without divesting his wrist the wealth. I did not think that would be a factor. But now that the dots have come out that may have been connected , weve had to change that. We have to stand by our principles. One of the things that is particularly important in a democracy is how do you get the populace to understand they have an interest in these issues . That is something that many of us had not been as successful as we need to be, as we saw in the results of this election, and we really need to do a better job convincing the people that the stability, the security of our country depends on countries like ukraine, countries like brazil, countries like mexico i think they see it in mexico, the drugs coming in and killing our children, you can connect to that. We can stop the illegal flow of drugs by stopping the cartels. Or we can get rid of the gang violence. I met with a gang leader when i under honduras, who is fbi, trying to cut a deal, and he was telling me what his role. As his role was to come to maryland and set up sister gangs. To connectwe have more of the dots. The United States is the greatest country in the world because of our values. We are in a position where we can make a huge difference. I would acknowledge this is one of the most interesting challenges i have had in my life. Pretend that io dont think damage has been done. I think damage has been done to the United States. We need to figure out a way to advance these causes. I believe we will. You will find democrats and republicans behind these rentals in developing policies that will leaveamerica not only to internationally, but at home, do our is right to protect central values. Thank you all. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer tonight on cspan, House Speaker all right holding a briefing on health care. Then speakers from the Health Conference join politico. Then the rules Committee Meets at and discusses a new health care proposal. Announcer at his weekly briefing, paul ryan talked about a health care admin. He also talked about devin nuness decision to step aside from the russia investigation. This is 15 minutes