Democrats Release New Bill On Russia And Iran Sanctions

The Trump administration's legislative affairs and Treasury staff are working to water down Senate-passed Russia sanctions legislation
The Trump administration's legislative affairs and Treasury staff are working to water down Senate-passed Russia sanctions legislation
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15 July, 2017

Democrats say they're concerned the stalling tactics could allow the Trump administration to return two Russian compounds in NY and Maryland that the Obama administration seized in December.

A resolution of inquiry is a legislative tool by which the House can get information from the administration. "That's just the way life is", said senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"There is clearly very strong support in Congress for vigilance with regards to the Russian government presence in the United States", the senators wrote.

House Democrats have been objecting to sending the bill back to the Senate by unanimous consent and GOP leaders have been hesitant to call it up for a vote, because blue slip issues have typically been addressed in a bipartisan fashion.

The administration officials, who were career civil servants, expressed concerns during the meeting about the congressional review provisions in the bill, which would give Congress veto power if the White House tries to loosen sanctions on Russian Federation, according to the staffers.

But both Republican and Democratic House aides said talks between the two parties were continuing and there was a decent chance for a quick compromise, more so because of the latest revelations about Trump's eldest son.

"What our concern is that the legislation, we believe, sets an unusual precedent of delegating foreign policy to 535 members of Congress by not including certain national security waivers that have always been consistently a part of sanctions bills in the past", he said. Democrats and some Republicans who backed the bill scoffed, saying the problem could have been quickly remedied.

Reps. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., and Ted Lieu, D-Calif., read the emails aloud amid a backdrop of a large poster board of Trump, Jr. on the cover of this week's Time magazine with the words "Red Handed" emblazoned on it, The Hill reported Friday.

In public, Republicans in Congress have downplayed the Russian inquiry as not a top priority for constituents back home.

Nonetheless, Pelosi seems convinced that Trump's inner circle crossed a legal line in meeting with a Russian government lawyer they believed would provide opposition research on Hillary Clinton - a meeting Pelosi said is "cold, hard evidence" that the Trump campaign "eagerly meant to collude with Russia", and pulls matters into "new territory".

House Democrats have promised to step up their oversight of Trump's possible connections with Russian Federation by using other floor procedures.

"Tonight, House Republicans made themselves accomplices to hiding President Trump's tax returns from the American people", she said in a press conference in February. One would have endorsed the intelligence community's January report that found Russian interference in the election. In the House, only the intelligence committee has been seriously probing Trump's alleged Russian Federation ties. They largely failed along party lines.


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