Again, Tornado Cash is not money laundering. It only provides transaction privacy. Here is the difference:
The result of money laundering is clean money: you can deposit it into your bank, pay taxes on it, and buy a Ferrari. That only happens if you can give the IRS a plausible explanation for how you obtained the funds legally.
Tornado Cash does not give you this plausible explanation. After using it, you still will not have clean money with an IRS-approved explanation of income. All you gain is privacy from chain analysis.
You could launder money through a restaurant or minting a NFT, since those are otherwise legal activities that could plausibly explain ending the day with more money than you started with. But Tornado Cash does not fit that description.
If you sell $160000 worth of crack for green paper bills that nobody knows are connected to drugs, you cannot buy a Ferrari. The IRS will come knocking and ask where you got the cash. First you would need to launder the money.
If you sell 100 ETH worth of crack and send it through Tornado Cash, you cannot buy a Ferrari. The IRS will come knocking and ask where you got the cash. First you would need to launder the money.
You can trade your green paper USD for a Ferrari. But after you drive it home, the IRS will still come knocking, because you didn't launder your money.
You can trade your Tornado Cash ETH for a Ferrari. But after you drive it home, the IRS will still come knocking, because you didn't launder your money.
Not when your use of the service obfuscates criminal flows and the service intentionally avoids meeting its AML/KYC obligations and doing even the tiniest iota to stop criminal use. That's when it switches from a privacy venue to a money-laundering venue and the fact you're there and using it in a legal way is incidental.
The result of money laundering is clean money: you can deposit it into your bank, pay taxes on it, and buy a Ferrari. That only happens if you can give the IRS a plausible explanation for how you obtained the funds legally.
Tornado Cash does not give you this plausible explanation. After using it, you still will not have clean money with an IRS-approved explanation of income. All you gain is privacy from chain analysis.
You could launder money through a restaurant or minting a NFT, since those are otherwise legal activities that could plausibly explain ending the day with more money than you started with. But Tornado Cash does not fit that description.