Warren calls Treasury fine of Bank of America a ‘slap-on-the-wrist’

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) on Wednesday blasted the Treasury Department’s $1.2 billion fine of Bank of America “as a slap-on-the-wrist.”

Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said in a statement that Bank of America “failed an implement an effective anti-money laundering program for years.”

In announcing the penalty, the Treasury Department said the country’s second-largest bank violated anti-money laundering and sanctions laws.

The financial institution failed to “mitigate and report priority national security risks” to regulators, the Treasury said in the press release. Those risks included “suspicious transactions” indicative of activity by Chinese money-laundering networks and southwest border cartels, the department noted.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the penalty — the third largest in his department’s history — showed that “even the biggest financial institutions are not above the law.”

But Warren cast the........

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