U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) on May 2 sponsored legislation that would require the President of the United States to investigate five Argentine officials for corruption and if the officials are found to meet the criteria for corruption sanctions, then the bill mandates that the sanctions be imposed.
The officials who would be investigated are Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner; her son, Máximo Kirchner, the country’s National Deputy since 2015; Argentina’s Vice Minister of Justice Juan Martín Mena; Argentina National Senator Oscar Isidro Jose Parrilli; and Carlos Alberto Zannini, an Argentine lawyer and politician who was the Legal and Technical Secretary of the Presidency under presidents Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner from 2003 to 2015.
“Cristina Fernández and her inner circle are some of Latin America’s most prolific embezzlers of public funds,” Rep. Salazar said on Tuesday. “It is time the United States take action against their unchecked abuse of power, which has resulted in theft and loss of billions of dollars belonging to the Argentinian people.”
Rep. Salazar introduced the Corruption in Argentina Stymied by Enforcing Sanctions (CASES) Act of 2023, H.R. 3067, with three Republican original cosponsors. The bill is companion legislation to the same-named S. 1019, introduced on March 28 by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
“Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is a deeply corrupt politician who has undermined Argentina’s rule of law and its political institutions,” said Sen. Cruz. “The evidence against her is public, credible, and backed up by Argentina’s courts. Beyond Argentina, she and her associates have undermined American security interests in the region by placing Argentina’s institutions at the service of Iran’s global terrorism campaign. They continue to do so.”
Cruz added that the U.S. Congress has passed into law authorities for the president to sanction individuals like Fernández de Kirchner and her associates, and that the CASES Act mandates that the president uses them “to protect American interests abroad from corrupt politicians seeking to undermine them,” he said.