Adam Szubin

Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, Treasury Department

Why He Matters

Szubin manages the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a small but powerful division at the Treasury Department that discreetly wages financial warfare against terrorists, criminals and rogue governments across the globe.

Szubin's staff at OFAC is trusted to administer the economic sanctions that U.S. policymakers increasingly rely on to advance national security and foreign policy goals in the post-9/11 era. At the flip of a switch, the agency can harness the vast machinery of the American financial system to seize and block the financial assets of any targeted individual or group with business in the United States.

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: Senior Adviser to the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence , Treasury Department; Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General, Justice Department ; Trial Attorney, Justice Department
Alma Mater: Harvard College, 1995; Harvard Law School, J.D., 1999

Spouse: Miriam
Web site

Path to Power

Szubin is the son of Laurie Szubin and Rabbi Zvi Henry Szubin. His father was a professor of Jewish law and comparative legal studies and his mother worked in the medical profession.

Szubin's academic career was marked by excellence. He attended Harvard College as a Fulbright scholar, graduating magna cum laude in 1995, and went on to earn his law degree from the school in 1999 cum laude. While in law school, Szubin was awarded a Heyman Fellowship, which provides grants and loan repayment assistance to graduates who are on track for government service.

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Justice Department

After serving out a clerkship with Judge Ronald Gilman on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Szubin started his career in earnest at Justice Department, where he was hired as a trial attorney in the Civil Division and tasked with defending the government against lawsuits.

Szubin said his first DOJ position provided him with a valuable crash course in the legal profession. "Part of the draw of working for the government is that as a young lawyer, you're given a tremendous amount of responsibility," he said.

It was during his service as a trial attorney that Szubin first became involved in national-security issues. As a member of DOJ's Terrorism Litigation Task Force, he defended the government against lawsuits from two charities that had seen their financial assets frozen by gpvernment after 9/11 attacks; the U.S. accused the charities of funneling resources to Hamas and al-Qaeda. The government won both cases in court.

Szubin's DOJ service earned him a promotion to counsel to the deputy attorney general. His involvement in terrorism and national-security issues increased with the new title, and he began attending regular Treasury meetings with officials from the CIA and FBI.

Treasury Department

Szubin left the DOJ to take a position at Treasury as senior adviser to Stuart Levey, the powerful under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence who runs the department's growing national security operations.

In 2005, Szubin chaired the Money Laundering Threat Assessment Working Group, a systematic policy review of illegal financial transactions that included officials from the Treasury Department, the Justice Department, Homeland Security, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Postal Service.

The report produced by Szubin's interagency group found that the U.S. had made impressive strides in combating money laundering but cautioned that the threat remained "a massive and evolving challenge that will require clear, strategic thinking."

On Aug. 1, 2006, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson named Szubin the director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control. In a statement accompanying the announcement, Levey heaped praise on his protege, noting that Szubin had "demonstrated tremendous ability to apply innovative strategies to combat the range of illicit threats we face."

The Issues

OFAC's operations are part of the Treasury Department's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (OTI), a unit established by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks that works closely with the U.S intelligence community to unravel the financial networks of terror groups and other rogue entities. The classified information and analysis gathered within the OTI becomes the basis for the enforcement actions that are taken by OFAC in the financial sector.

OFAC's ability to seize and confiscate assets is a happy byproduct of America's preeminent position in global finance. Because so many of the world's banking transactions are routed through the U.S., OFAC's actions can have a devastating impact on the balance sheets of groups far from America's shores.

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"All financial roads today lead to New York [City]," Szubin once explained. "When a designated party in the Gulf, for example, tries to send money to Southeast Asia, that transfer will often pass through a United States bank, if only for an instant. The result is typically that these funds are frozen or blocked."

In recent years, OFAC has implemented economic sanctions against a dizzying array of foreign institutions, criminals and terror groups. Iran, North Korea, and Sudan have all found themselves on the receiving end of punitive measures, as have the terrorist groups al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas. OFAC also imposes economic sanctions on known drug and arms traffickers.

OFAC maintains a Specially Designated Nationals list of all the individuals and organizations that U.S. citizens are legally prohibited from doing business with. The list is updated regularly and made available to the public on the Treasury Department's Web site.

al-Qaeda

Ever since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, one of OFAC's central goals has been to dismantle and disrupt the financial infrastructure that sustains the activities of al-Qaeda. Szubin has noted that OFAC's pursuit of al-Qaeda actually predates the attacks on American soil, as the agency first began taking actions against the terror group in the late '90s.

The decentralized nature of al-Qaeda's operations has made it difficult for OFAC to discern the full impact of its efforts, but intelligence reports have provided some evidence of success. "When you see a cell [in al-Qaeda] complaining that it hasn't received its monthly or biannual stipend and it's unable to pay the salaries of the people in the cell that's a tremendous indicator we have pressured the financial channel," Szubin said.

Smart Sanctions

In March 2010, Szubin revealed that OFAC had loosened economic sanctions against Iran, Cuba and Sudan to permit the sale of Internet and communications technology. Szubin said personal communications resources are "integral to seeing democratic change" in those countries and held up the action as an example of the kind of "smart sanctions" targeted to specific outcomes that OFAC wants to pursue in the future.

"It's exactly what I think OFAC needs to be doing, not simply designating new targets or tightening sanctions, but also loosening sanctions when it can further our foreign policy goals," Szubin said.

The Network

Szubin worked with former boss, Stuart Levey, and now David S. Cohen, the Treasury Department's acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

Campaign Contributions

Federal Election Commission records indicate Szubin has never contributed to a political campaign.

Additional Resources

U.S. Money Laundering Threat Assessment, December 2005
Bacon, Katie, "Alumni Spotlight," December 16, 2008
Testimony, Senate Banking Committee, September 12, 2006
Fletcher, Pascal, Reuters, "Smart Sanctions can support democratic change: U.S.," March 15, 2010
The New York Times, "Wedding Announcements," August 15, 2004
State News Service, "Al-Qaida's budget slips through cracks," November 14, 2008
Treasury Department, "Adam Szubin Named New OFAC Director," August 1, 2006
Biography, Treasury Department Web Site

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