Washington: The White House of Trump chose the worst possible time to criticize a package of new sanctions from Russia that is headed toward an almost certain and overwhelming approval by Congress.
The administration stayed on the sidelines as lawmakers worked out popular legislation between Republicans and Democrats alike.
And now his complaints about a key section of the bill drown amid the astonishing revelations Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s eldest son met with a Russian lawyer after he was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton provided by the Kremlin.
“Really none,” replied Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, when asked what role the White House played in the development of legislation. He said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson knew the bill was being drafted, but the State Department did not offer substantive advice before it passed the Senate last month with 98 votes. “This was not done in the dark,” Corker said.
Many lawmakers saw the president’s desire to have warmer relations with Moscow cautiously long before Trump’s son posted e-mails showing him contemptuous information about Clinton that would possibly be available through sources connected with the Russian government.
They have supported investigations by House and Senate intelligence committees into Russia’s meddling in the presidential election and praised the Justice Department’s election of former FBI director Robert Mueller to conduct a separate investigation into whether the campaign Trump agreed with Moscow.
Trump did not help anything when he refused to publicly denounce Vladimir Putin in the same way his staff insisted he did it privately during a meeting late last week with the Russian leader.
The result is that Trump, who is still eager to win on the Capitol, could face a difficult choice: signing the sanctions law and possibly spilling his bid for a new partnership with Russia or vetoing the legislation, unleashing a clamor and risk that That decision be annulled by Congress.
Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the Democrat’s top Democrat, called on Congress to “act immediately and definitively” on sanctions legislation after Tuesday’s revelations by Donald Trump Jr.
The scarcity of constructive inputs for important legislation may be due to the lack of adequate staff in the State and Treasury departments, the federal agencies primarily responsible for administering sanctions programs.
The White House has blamed the Democrats for hampering qualified Trump candidates. But the Democrats fired again, saying it’s the administration’s fault for moving at a glacial pace to fill key vacancies.
Either way, the White House’s objections to the bill are too late to matter. The section of the bill that the administration does not have has strong bipartisan support.
The provisions would require a review by Congress if Trump seeks to alleviate or end sanctions against Moscow. The provisions are designed after 2015 Republican-led legislation and passed in the Senate that gave Congress a vote on whether then-President Barack Obama could lift sanctions against Iran.
Marc Short, White House legislative director, said Monday that the sanctions review section “sets an unusual precedent for delegating foreign policy to 535 members of Congress.”
Treasury officials and state departments met last week with House Congressional staff in a belated attempt to voice their concerns about the Congressional review. They said the section would infringe on the executive authority of the president.
But Corker predicted that the House will soon pass a “nearly identical” sanctions bill to legislation passed by the Senate easily in mid-June.
Only one Republican, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, opposed the bill, which also slaps Tehran with new sanctions. The administration had a chance.
Tillerson had the ideal forum to voice his concerns and objections when he testified before the Foreign Relations Committee on June 13, the morning after Senate Republicans and Democrats agreed on Russia’s sanctions legislation.
But Tillerson was ambiguous when Senator Bob Menendez, D-N.J., asked about the Russian sanctions bill. He told the committee that he was still reviewing the proposal,But warned lawmakers against legislation that would tie the president’s hands during negotiations with Putin. Two days later, the Senate approved the bill sanctioning sanctions against Russia and Iran. White House spokesman Sean Spicer declined nearly two weeks later to comment on legislation, calling the measure “hypothetical.” The House’s Republican leadership has not yet scheduled a vote on the bill, although one is expected to Before Congress breaks the August recess. How soon will it depend on how quickly a dispute over a bill’s revision can be resolved after the Senate has approved it. House Democrats have accused the change undermining its ability to
