ABC News’ Jason Ryan reports: Legislation that would assign more federal agents and prosecutors to fraud-enforcement efforts has cleared its final hurdle before heading to the full Senate for a vote.
The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act, sponsored by Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is designed to give more resources to federal investigators, including the hiring of FBI agents and prosecutors to work on mortgage and financial fraud cases.
Lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted today to move it to the full Senate.
In addition to hiring agents and prosecutors, the bill would change the definition of “financial institution” to cover mortgage lending businesses and expand anti-fraud regulations to include the Troubled Asset Relief Program and recently passed economic stimulus package.
At a hearing last month, FBI Deputy Director John Pistole said that during the height of the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s, the FBI had 1,000 agents working on various task forces.
But currently, the FBI only has 240 agents working on mortgage fraud issues and the bureau is looking to shift agents to work more on white collar and corporate fraud cases from national security cases.
“The 240 agents now are working very hard. … We are looking to see if the agents on national security could move over without jeopardizing national security,” Pistole told lawmakers.
The FBI has about 250 agents who are working on corporate and securities fraud cases in addition to the agents assigned to track down mortgage fraud.
Senate leadership will have to determine when the legislation will be considered by the full Senate.
In a statement Thursday, Grassley said, “We’re sending a message by revising our laws to ensure criminals are brought to justice, law enforcement has the tools to uncover these fraudulent schemes, and bad actors are taken off the streets.”
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