Defy President Trump’s denial and send bill to him before the August recess: Our view
As a rule, it’s not always wise for Congress to insert itself directly into the process of foreign policy, an area more rightly reserved for the executive branch. New laws to impose sanctions against a country can be very difficult to remove and can deny a president the flexibility necessary to conduct diplomacy.
It was a bad idea, for example, when Congress threatened to muck up delicate nuclear-agreement talks with Iran in 2014 by threatening a bill that would have dictated accord-killing terms.
But what Congress is attempting now with new sanctions against Russia is an altogether different kettle of fish. The House and Senate should be applauded for their bipartisan act of defiance against President Trump, who remains stubbornly in denial about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brazen ploy to interfere in the American electoral process.
The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted to punish Moscow with a bill that also hamstrings the president from easing the sanctions without congressional approval. The Senate, which passed an earlier version by a resounding 98-2 vote, should act quickly on the revised bill and send it to Trump’s desk before the August recess.
Even if Trump had the nerve to veto the measure, he’d face the humiliation of an override by a Congress controlled by his own party, something the Senate Historical Office says hasn’t happened since 1980, when Jimmy Carter was president.
U. S. intelligence agencies unanimously agree that America’s electoral system was attacked by Russia last year when Moscow’s cyberoperators hacked into computer systems and disseminated stolen information to boost Trump’s candidacy. Russian hackers also launched a disinformation campaign to undermine Hillary Clinton and even tried to break into state voting systems, although there’s no evidence they were successful.
Yet despite these conclusions by U. S. intelligence authorities, Trump remains in fervent — and mystifying — denial about Russian responsibility. Just Sunday, he was tweeting how an ongoing investigation was a “phony Russian witch hunt.” Worse than that, he has flirted with lifting earlier sanctions imposed by the Obama administration. Winning sanctions relief was almost certainly one of Putin’s key goals with his election meddling.
The new bill would impose modest punishments. They include sanctions against cybersecurity officials in Russia, as well as purveyors of human rights violations and distributors of arms to Syria. The legislation also includes new sanctions against Iran and North Korea.
But the actions could be troublesome for Russia just as its economy begins to show tentative improvement after years of declining oil prices, inflation and anemic growth. New sanctions could steepen that recovery slope.
Given Moscow’s transgressions, that would be a good thing. Most important, it would send a strong message to Putin that his anti-sanctions campaign is backfiring spectacularly.
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