Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, left, talks to Thomas Curry, comptroller of the U.S. currency, following a Senate Banking Committee hearing in Washington, on March 7, 2013.
When are drug cartels and terrorism funny? When you know your audience, as Sen. Mark Kirk apparently did when he devoted his microphone to a comedic moment as the Senate Banking Committee grilled federal regulators today.
After hearing banking regulators explain why they couldn’t hit HSBC Holdings Plc harder in what they agreed was the most egregious recent example of money-laundering violations, the Illinois Republican turned slyly to a fellow committee member, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, to make a business proposition.
Kirk, who fills President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat, said he and Warren should start a financial firm to “just handle drugs and terrorism.”
“I think we can make a killing that way,” he said, and be free of the threat of prosecution.
The sedate hearing chamber erupted in laughter, including Warren’s. The Massachusetts Democrat praised Kirk’s “spirit of bipartisanship.”
