Despite calls from some members of Congress to place economic sanctions on Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, the United States Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has refused to do so. Such requests have been coming from House Homeland Security Chairman Pete King.

However, OFAC has refused to carry out such requests stating that there is no evidence to support Mr. Assange’s placing on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List. In other words, Mr. Assange has not done anything to violate any of the sanctions programs and therefore should not be placed on the SDN list.

Those in Congress angry with Mr. Assange and Wikileaks’ efforts are seeking to prevent U.S. companies from doing business with them in order to stymie their continued leaking of U.S. diplomatic cables. Rep. King wrote Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner last week urging him to add WikiLeaks to the SDN list stating that, “the U.S. government simply cannot continue its ineffective piecemeal approach of responding in the aftermath of WikiLeaks’ damage. The administration must act to disrupt the WikiLeaks enterprise. The U.S. government should be making every effort to strangle the viability of Assange’s organization.”

Rep. King is way off in his request and I am happy to see that he was shut down by Treasury. There is no sanctions program currently in place that would allow for Julian Assange’ designation for his Wikileaks activities. As such, there is no reason for Mr. Assange’s placement on the SDN List. Placing Mr. Assange on the SDN Listwithout proper grounds would seriously undermine OFAC’s legitimacy and the integrity of the sanctions programs.

The author of this blog is Erich Ferrari, an attorney specializing in OFAC matters. If you have any questions please contact him at 202-280-6370 or ferrari@ferrari-legal.com.