Source: #2 most powerful democrat in Senate to hold hearings to investigate Kuwait and connections to terror funding

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the second most powerful democrat in the Senate, the ranking democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee and the founding Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, will hold hearings to investigate two key banking institutions in Kuwait and whether they helped fund terrorism, sources say.

While Durbin hasn’t commented on the reported investigation into Kuwait banks’ ties to terror, he has been very outspoken about clamping down on terror, wherever it is.

“Our focus should be on people with possible links to terrorism, regardless of their nationality,” Durbin has publicly said. “I commend the Obama Administration for providing guidance on waivers for legitimate travelers to Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria, and urge the Administration to issue similar guidance for dual nationals of these countries.”

Sources say the Durbin hearings, to be conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, will target the Kuwait Finance House, a Kuwait based bank, and the Kuveyt-Turk Participation Bank, Inc., a financial institution based in Turkey, which is allegedly owned by the Kuwait Finance House. The outfits allegedly distributed money and financial services to known terrorists organizations, such as ISIS, which has killed and maimed civilians, beheaded Christians and created a massive refugee crisis in the Middle East.

“Durbin has a made a career and headlines going after human rights violators,” says an source on Capitol Hill who did not want to be identified. “Durbin will relentlessly examine the Kuwait Finance House and the Kuveyt-Turk Participation Bank, Inc. because they are alleged to have funded ISIS which has led to a human rights crisis.”

As founding Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, Durbin has shined the bright light on human rights crises around the world, including Ukraine.

Durbin was instrumental in encouraging his then-junior Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, to run and who became the 44th President of the United States. Durbin has sponsored or co-sponsored a long list of bills and on a range of issues.

The International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence estimates that ISIS includes 70 Kuwaitis in its ranks. If so, Kuwait has contributed roughly the same number of fighters to Islamic State as Somalia has. Somalia is a country known for importing and exporting extremism and terrorism. Kuwait is also a country the U.S. defended when Iraq invaded in 1989.

The acts allegedly perpetrated by the Kuwait Finance House and the Kuveyt-Turk Participation Bank would be in direct violation of the Anti-Terrorism Act 18 U.S.C. §§ 2339A, 2339B and 2339C.

Durbin has a been a strong advocate of protecting Americans oversees and fighting the war on global terrorism.

“We need to protect the people who are out there representing us, we need to know and realize we’re living in an increasingly-dangerous world. And this specific threat that we’ve been briefed on over and over again has reached a new level.”