Divided over US$687mil in seized assets


A refugee camp for displaced Yazidis in the Duhok province of Iraq. US officials are divided over what to do with US$687mil in forfeited assets. — ©2024 The New York Times Company

BIDEN administration officials are divided over what to do with US$687mil in assets a French company forfeited after pleading guilty to aiding terrorist groups like the Islamic State (IS), according to people familiar with internal deliberations.

The dispute, which has pit the US State Department against the Justice Department, raises a tangle of legal, moral and policy problems about the financial implications of executive branch officials handling an unusually large amount of money that has not gone through the usual process of being appropriated for a specific purpose by Congress.

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