High-profile crypto critic Elizabeth Warren’s theories about the threats posed by digital assets have reportedly been debunked by a government insider during an oversight hearing of the House Financial Services Committee.
FOX Business reports that the testimony of a top official from the Treasury Department’s Terrorism and Financial Intelligence office has dealt a serious blow to the U.S. senator’s narrative that digital assets threaten national security.
According to a transcript reviewed by FOX, Brian Nelson, the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said the use of digital assets by terrorists is not the big problem that Warren and other media outlets have made it out to be.
The testimony reportedly damages Senator Warren’s previous claims that crypto assets are largely responsible for financing terrorist groups around the world.
Warren is also pushing for legislation that would supposedly force the crypto industry “to follow the same anti-money laundering rules as everyone else.”
The senator previously said that it is about closing loopholes in the law.
“The Treasury Department makes it clear that we need new laws to tackle the use of cryptocurrencies and enable terrorist groups, rogue states, drug lords, ransomware gangs and fraudsters to launder billions in stolen money, evade sanctions, run illegal weapons programs to finance and profit from devastating cyber attacks.”
However, in a conversation with House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, Nelson said:
“We found that, quite frankly, terrorists still prefer to use traditional products and services.”
In an interview with FOX, Emmer said the US Treasury Department had the data to correct the narrative around crypto and terrorist financing, but the agency chose to stay on the sidelines.
“For months, lawmakers, business leaders, and the American public were persuaded to believe that crypto was a key fundraising tool for Hamas because the press misinterpreted data about the chain and wildly inflated the numbers… The Treasury Department had the right information all along data and had a responsibility to correct the press’s false narrative, but failed to put things right until the damage had already been done.”
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