Washington, D.C. – House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) issued the following statement on the Justice Department’s new Hezbollah Financing and Narcoterrorism Team:

“The Foreign Affairs Committee’s persistent work helped uncover the Obama administration’s efforts to ice key investigations and prosecutions of deadly terrorists in its pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran. Today’s move is an encouraging step to make things right. We must refocus our law enforcement agencies on the growing threats posed by Hezbollah and its broad criminal network that is engaged in a range of illicit activities – from drug trafficking to money laundering and counterfeiting. I appreciate the administration’s aggressiveness on this critical national security matter. And I hope this new team will fully coordinate with Treasury and State to maximize pressure on Iran’s top terror proxy.”

Note: In February and June of 2017, the committee convened hearings that helped expose the Obama administration’s efforts to stop investigations and prosecutions of Hezbollah. In October of last year, the House passed legislation to build on Chairman Royce’s landmark Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act to provide additional tools to crack down on Hezbollah and hold it accountable for its deadly acts.

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