- Joined
- May 29, 2013
- Messages
- 21,005
- Reaction score
- 2
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powe...?utm_source=reddit.com&utm_term=.f54382c922c6
The lengths his own party has to go to in order to stop him from alleviating punishing sanctions on an enemy nation for attacking America's foundational institutions....
Even though Congress took the unprecedented step of passing sanctions that their own president couldn't veto, Trump still managed to delay them as long as possible for the Russian oligarchs to move their finances around to minimize the damage and it looks like he still didn't even implement them all. No brilliant legal manoeuvring, he just refused to do it.
Full article at link.
Congress to ease Russia sanctions amid clamor for tougher measures
Bowing to pressure from the Trump administration, lawmakers unveiled a sweeping defense policy bill Tuesday that would give the president greater power to forgo certain Russia-related penalties.
The move to scale back sanctions stands in sharp contrast to mounting bipartisan fervor in the Senate to get tougher on Russia after a summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that was roundly decried as an embarrassment and a missed opportunity to deal harshly with the Kremlin over election interference.
...
Leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations and Banking committees also announced that they would soon hold hearings to address, among other matters, the implementation of sanctions against Russia.
But rank-and-file lawmakers are growing impatient for action, as demonstrated by several bipartisan pairs of senators who have raised and endorsed bills and resolutions demanding an increase in punitive measures against Russian actors caught undermining the United States. On Tuesday, Sens. Menendez and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) teased forthcoming legislation that would immediately step up sanctions on Russian oligarchs and the country’s energy, financial and cyber sectors; tighten reporting requirements to Congress about existing sanctions implementation; and require Senate approval for any bid to withdraw from NATO. Also Tuesday. Sens. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin demanding that the department impose sanctions on the Russians cited in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s latest indictment.
Those moves come on the heels of repeated efforts by Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) to secure a vote in the Senate expressing lawmakers’ conviction that Trump should fully enforce existing sanctions against Russia. In recent days, a wave of Republican and Democratic senators has also signed on to a bill from Sens. Van Hollen and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) that would slap new sectoral sanctions on Russia if the director of national intelligence concluded that the Kremlin had tried to interfere in another election, within 10 days of his determination.
In addition to bipartisan efforts, individual senators have also written resolutions to push back against Trump’s erratic Russia diplomacy, such as a proposal from Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) opposing any more one-on-one meetings between Trump and Putin without a second U.S. official present. After Russia’s description of “agreements” reached in Helsinki, the administration has been repeatedly pressed to report what happened during Trump’s two-hour-plus meeting alone with Putin.
The lengths his own party has to go to in order to stop him from alleviating punishing sanctions on an enemy nation for attacking America's foundational institutions....
Even though Congress took the unprecedented step of passing sanctions that their own president couldn't veto, Trump still managed to delay them as long as possible for the Russian oligarchs to move their finances around to minimize the damage and it looks like he still didn't even implement them all. No brilliant legal manoeuvring, he just refused to do it.
Full article at link.