Congress Moves To Tie Trump's Hands In His Numerous Attempts To Sell Out To Putin

Only Rand Paul (R-KY) and Mike Lee (R-UT) opposed the Russia sanction bill that passed the Senate with 97 votes on Wednesday. It’s pretty incredible when you take into account that the legislation allows Congress to block Putin’s cockholder from even easing— let alone ending— sanctions against Russia. The House is unlikely to go along with the bipartisan Senate package attached to an Iran sanctions bill, but House Republicans voting no will further jeopardize many of them who have to face angry voters in 2018. Sherrod Brown told reporters that “People in the White House, we hear, are making calls in the House to try to stop it, slow it, weaken it, dilute it.” Can you imagine Trump signing it? Will he have one of his goofy ceremonies to show people he has some kind of a function besides tweeting and golfing?

The bill, which is the first time Senate Republicans stood up to Trump since Putin installed him, was co-sponsored by senior GOP heavy-weights: Majority Leader McConnell, John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Bob Corker.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declined to support the measure when he appeared before the House Foreign Affairs and Appropriations Committees on Wednesday.

"I would urge Congress to ensure any legislation allows the President to have the flexibility to adjust sanctions to meet the needs of what is always an evolving diplomatic situation," Tillerson told lawmakers. "Essentially, we would ask for the flexibility to turn the heat up when we need to, but also to ensure that we have the ability to maintain a constructive dialogue."

In addition to curbing the White House's power to act unilaterally with regard to Russia, the bill calls for imposing new sanctions on the Kremlin's military-intelligence and energy sectors and "prohibiting access to the properties of the Government of the Russian Federation" that Obama ordered vacated last December.

If passed, the measure could hamper ongoing talks between Trump administration officials and their Kremlin counterparts to remove the "irritants" in their relationship, beginning with the return of Russia's diplomatic compounds that were seized by Obama last year.

The Trump crusade on behalf of Putin lies at the bottom of many of the investigations into Trump and his family and cabinet that has made his regime the most scandal-ridden in contemporary American history. McCain particularly, seems eager to portray the Senate as grabbing power from a weak, corrupt and confused White House. McCain is eager to see Congress take as much foreign policy power away from the easily bought-off Trump as possible. (Recall, the Senate almost succeeded in blocking Trump’s crazy arms sale to Saudi Arabia as well.)

The companion House bill, introduced by Steny Hoyer, has 43 cosponsors including Republicans Tom Rooney (FL), Adam Kinzinger (IL), Mike Turner (OH), Tom Cole (OK), Mike Simpson (ID), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL) and Mike Kelly (PA) plus electorally vulnerable Republicans increasingly desperate to separate themselves from Trump’s toxicity at every opportunity, like Mike Coffman (CO), Leonard Lance (NJ), Pat Meehan (PA), Charlie Dent (PA), Barbara Comstock (VA), Peter Roskam (IL), Ryan Costello (PA) and Brian Mast (FL).