concern about our work. and i'm sure that if you knew as much as we did about the family research council, you too would keep them at arm's length. >> well, i'm way over time. i would love to have the more. panels. >> look forward to seeing you in charlottesville. >> and invite you guys to come to the office at any time. give me advance notice so i can being there. thank you. >> the chair thanks the gentleman. i thank the witnesses for their testimony and the members for their questions.mtprx the members of the committee may have some additional questions for the witnesses, and we will ask you to respond to these or those questions in writing.ú the chair recognizes the ranking member. >> thank you. i would like to include in the record and unanimous consent to do so, a statement from the american islamic relations. >> without objection. >> pursuant to committee rule 7 delta, the hearing record will be held open for ten days. without objection, the committee stands adjourned.

next, a look at the effectiveness of u.s. sanctions against countries like iran and north korea. and other countries of strategic importance. top officials from the treasury department who are responsible for implementing sanctions testified on the trump administration's priorities. and evaluated sanctions currently in place. on russia, venezuela, north korea and iran. we join the hearing in progress.

>> now, another question i have. as part of the omnibus package that was passed earlier in the year, we requested that the treasury department issue a report on entities that were delisted under the jcpoa and whether they have engaged in sanctionable activity since the jcpoa and we have not got that result yet. so if you could help us there. so what is the status of that report, and do you feel that any entities that had their sanctions lifted under the jcpoas have continued to engage in activity since the deal began to be enforced? >> so we continue working on those reports, as we said. we have about 90 a year we're working on, and most of those we get in on time. some are more difficult, because they're time-consuming. if we see sanctionable activity, if we see sanctionable conduct, we act against it. >> okay. mr. chairman, i yield my time back. >> the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from michigan, mr.

highsinga, securities and investment subcommittee. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and appreciate your testimony today. good to see you again. and a couple quick questions. one i want to touch on china and then north korea. in 2005, the u.s. designated china's bonko delta asia as a financial institution of, quote, primary money laundering concern. and treasury department recently did the same thing with china's bank of dan dong. however, these banks are relatively small institutions. and are there larger foreign financial institutions that treasury is going after? >> thanks for the question, congressman. we as a matter of practice don't tip our hand in advance of any actions. >> i don't want to know names. i want to know whether there are bigger -- there certainly are bigger fish to fry and i want to -- i'm looking for some reassurance that treasury is looking at this and is looking to pursue this. >> i think the best reassurance i can give you, because it's just very -- it's out there, is

that we put out an advisory to all of our financial institutions through fence, and which delineated and showed the type of typology that the bank of dan dong was engaged in and highlighted other areas where our banks need to be wary and pointed them right at a particular part of china, adjacent to north korea, where we urge our banks to be vigilant. you can interpret directly from that we have a lot of concerns and continue to investigate. >> mr. chairman, maybe -- we had a great classified briefing yesterday, and maybe this would be an issue and a subject that we could -- if we -- if need be, we needed to go into a classified bipartisan briefing. we might want to look at doing that. quickly, in july 13th, "washington post" article, high-level north korea defactor, who was part of routinely eaggravating sanctions, noted how even when north korean firms are on the black list, he said,

quote, north korea is 100% state enterprise, so these companies just change their names the day after they are sanctioned. that way the company continues, but with a different name that one of the -- that -- with a different name than the one on the sanctions list. end quote. and so without objection, mr. chairman, i'd like to enter that article into the record, as well. so i assume without oxide like to enter an article into the record. >> so ordered. >> thank you. we have also seen north korean entities designated by treasury, you know -- is there more energy being devoted to enablers in china or southeast asia and elsewhere, rather than just play whac-a-mole with dprk entities? . >> yes, sir. the key is not to play whac-a-mole. the key is to map theatse netwos out and to take the networks down simultaneously, employing not just sanctions authority

from ofac but working with our law enforcement community, partner nations and their communities and the intelligence community and so on. diplomatic endeavors. otherwise you're treating symptoms of the problem, not the root cause. >> treating those symptoms, i wholeheartedly agree. it just -- this one stunned me. there's media reports that there is a proposal circulating within the u.n. security council that would have frozen north korean leaders' as sets. and i said to myself, i didn't know there wasn't an asset that wasn't frozen already. and if it hasn't been frozen, why not? i mean, this is the sixth missile launch that they -- test they've done. if we haven't gotten to everybody, every significant north korean leader's assets internationally, which reports are they are significant, we know that they have no problem

starving their own people for advancement of both the weapons, as well as their own aggrandizement. but, you know, what is -- what is treasury doing? is treasury going after those banks that hold those assets, as well? >> we are. >> okay. well, i would look forward -- maybe we could unpack this a bit more in a slightly different setting. but i think this is a significant, significant issue, and this is one of the few tools that we know has worked in the past. and that we need to continue to implement that. so with that, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from west virginia for five minutes. >> thank you. continuing right along on the north korea issue, line of questioning. and i think my first question is about relating to the office of foreign assets control. so direct this first one to mr. smith.

on september 26th, ofac announced it was designating eight north korean financial institutions along with 26 representatives of north korea, banks abroad. so how is it that as of september of 2017, there were still any north korean banks that remained unsanctioned and how many more still have not been designated? >> so when we identify a bank and we use specific terminology, when we identified those banks, we were identifying them for the ease of the public, but the state-owned banks had already been designated, as a -- as a matter of their assets would have been frozen in the united states, because they were government of north korea. so we use the term, we identified those banks, and then we sanctioned the additional financial representatives around the world, because we were adding them to our list. so it's very important for us, because our sdn list is used around the world. we want to make sure that's on every bank's filter, no matter in the united states, but also around the world. so that they get a hit, even if it's not in the united states.

>> okay. so you've got it covered then. >> we've got it covered. >> one way or another for sanctions. okay. secondly, then, what is the real impact of blocking a north korean we have got it covered. >> so what's the magnitude of their assets? how would they have access to them under existing u.s. trade restrictions? >> the impact of sanctions can be different depending on the entity that's sanctioned. a north korean bank would not have had assets in the united states. because we had already prohibited that activity. but the impact of sanctions is it's freezing the assets in the united states, so no one around the world can use them. they're being used by banks around the world. so that's the impact is making sure that not just in the united states, but the rest of the world can follow suit and hit our alarm. >> it's not just banks that use

the ofac sdn list, there are certain governments that actually will pursue parallel blocking actions on their own, based on an ofac sanction. so we do get a magnifying effect from a number of countries when ofa kprrks ta ark ofac takes action. >> a new york times article as a conservative article, i don't often cite the "new york times" articles. but in this case i think they have done some good work. it was reported in this "new york times" article that north korea may now be exporting less to china, but north korea may also be receiving trade credits from china, to finance continued imports, and of course these trade credits will help nullify north korea were having trouble coming up with hard currency. so if chinese entities including

banks are -- shouldn't the treasury be designating them? >> that's a great point and i think we are seeing, as they evolve in response to u.n. security council resolutions, a constant effort to evade sanctions and barter is one of the ways they're -- so trade credits or maybe just plain old barter is another way they're trying to evade the effect of the financial hammer lock that we're endeavoring to put on them. so we're tracking that and if you trade with north korea, i don't care whether you're trading in dollars or yuan or whatever, any barter relationship exposes you to u.s. sanctions. >> thank you, chairman, i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back and there's one minute left remaining from the gentleman's time, if i could ask one question of our witnesses on

north korea, a lot of the questions on north korea, and focussed on secondary sanctions on chinese entities and we have talked a lot about the fact that those secondary sanctions may not have been fully exhausted. to the extent that is the case, is that because of u.s. fear or concern that we may lose beijing cooperation? or is it merely a resource issue for ofac and treasury? >> it's not a fear, in any stretch of the imagination, we are engaged, we have a game plan, we have a strategy and we are executing that strategy and that strategy involves a number of different prongs of activity of which treasury action is but one, so we are maintaining synchronizization with the united nations, with our ambassador there, with state department there, with law enforcement intelligence and the

department of defense. so when it sometimes seems like we're not quite sure why we're synchronizing things the way we are, we would be happy to come up and explain things to you because there's a method to this full on campaign. >> i would like to thank our witnesses for not only your testimony today and the service and the work that you're putting in to keep the american people safe and to advance the national security interests of our country. and without objection, all members will have five legislative days to submit questions to the

>> countries like the people of cuba, we're supposed to be supporting private enterprise and yet the new sanctions now are hurting the very private families that have bed and breakfast, those are the ones being hurt by the new sanctions that trump has just imposed. and what do you think that the sanctions are doing to the normal everyday iranian people? shouldn't iran be awarded for the iran nuclear deal? instead of being penalized? i think you got it all wrong, congress people and ofoc.

the saudi company that you want to be traded on the stock exchange. saudi is the number one weapons purchaser in the united states and what they have done with those weapons is to destroy the people of yemen? that is so, so sad. and how can you just keep focusing on iran and not talk about saudi arabia? you don't think the rest of the world sees the hypocrisy of the united states in all of this? that it's all for you about money from saudi arabia because they have so much oil well? this is the country that is the most repress ssive country in t region, the one that has destroyed uprising in yemen, and it's own country, it's the most repressive country for women. and this is the country that we supply weapons with and we don't want to have sanctions against saudi arabia? and instead you focus on iran? i don't really understand and i think most of the people of the world don't understand.

it would be nice if somebody could tell us how you decide which of these countries to focus on. because it sure looks like it's all about focussing on what israel wants us to do and what saudi arabia wants us to do. and speaking about -- that would be another good thing. i'm just a little crazy person, talking to myself. >> that's all right. >> talking about israel. why don't we sanction israel? in fact some of us are -- >> follow me. >> our congress people to recognize how repressive'ikcñ t raeal israeli government is? >> living in poverty, but over the last 40 years, the people on

the top have been doing phenomenally well, and today we have more incoming wealth inequality than any time since the late 1920s. given that reality, who in their right mind believes that it makes sense to give huge tax breaks for the people on top while cutting -- while raising taxes for -- join us on c-span3 this weekend for american history tv. here are a few highlights, on saturday at 3:00 p.m. eastern, in honor of the 1967 public broad casting act,. and at 8:00 p.m. on lectures in history, ran doll jeffs on the role of african-american ministers in politics and how

members help gain experience in organizing and running for political office. and recollections of the battle of midway, in four world war ii veterans who took part. american history tv, all weekend, every weekend. onl[pcn!j-k on c-spanc-span3. the new hampshire democratic party hosted their kennedy-clinton dinner in hollis last week featuring!)6 representatives john delaney and tim ryan, dnc vice chair and members of new hampshire congressional delegation. new hampshire democrats won eight out of ten special elections this year, including the mayor's seat in manchester, the state capitol.