Sen. Bernie Sanders is questioning why the U.S. Federal Reserve provided more than $26 billion in credit to an Arab intermediary for the Central Bank of Libya.
The total includes at least $3 billion in loans that the Fed was forced to make public Thursday in addition to earlier revelations under a provision Sanders got included in a Wall Street reform law.
Sanders is questioning why the Libyan-owned bank and two of its branches in New York were exempted from sanctions that the United States this month slapped on other Libyan businesses to pressure Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s government.
Sanders is pointing to 46 emergency, low-interest loans to the Arab Banking Corporation, in which the Central Bank of Libya owns a 59 percent stake.