The Baninter scandal reached the halls of the United States Congress yesterday, when, according to the Listin Diario, the Undersecretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Roger Noriega, told a House sub-committee on Western Hemisphere Affairs that President Mejia and his government acted correctly in uncovering the issues surrounding Baninter. Noriega and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) were testifying on the corruption within certain governments of Latin America. According to Noriega, the Dominican government investigated and identified the factors in the Baninter case, and “faced an extraordinarily wide spectrum of corruption, in which one family in particular maintained a vast network of corruption. ?To (Mejia’s) credit, his government has identified a lot of people that have a lot to account for?” Menendez told the committee that he was especially worried about the corruption in the Dominican Republic and a certain family’s bank that had wasted US$2 billion, according to the Associated Press. Menendez also felt that the Bush administration had followed an “incoherent” policy with regards to Latin America, and especially countries like The Dominican Republic, Bolivia and Haiti.