US Senator Elizabeth Warren has criticized the Department of Justice's (DOJ) recent money-laundering settlement with TD for, in her view, not going far enough in punishing the bank's "reckless leadership."
In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, Warren claimed that the DOJ allowed TD "to side-step the penalties that Congress intended to apply to money laundering crimes." Warren argued that TD's plea agreement deflected blame to its holding company, protecting it from the full range of punishments reserved for banks that commit money laundering crimes. This includes the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's "death penalty" provision for banks.
"DOJ did identify these crimes in the settlement but allowed TD Bank's holding company — not TD Bank itself — to plead guilty to 'causing' TD Bank to 'fail to maintain an AML program that complies with the Bank Secrecy Act' and 'causing' TD Bank to 'fail to file accurate CTRs,' among other charges," Warren wrote. She also criticized the DOJ's decision to allow TD to plead guilty to "conspiracy to launder money," rather than a more severe money laundering charge.
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