Top House Dem floats fixes to Russia sanctions impasse

A top House Democrat is suggesting two potential solutions to the current impasse over a Senate-passed Russian sanctions bill.

The legislation would allow Congress to override President Trump if he seeks to remove sanctions on Russia. It also puts new sanctions into place on Russia, and codifies existing sanctions that former President Obama enforced through executive action.

The legislation, approved in an overwhelming 98-2 vote in the Senate last month, was held up in the House when lawmakers said it violated the constitutional requirement that all revenue-raising measures originate in the lower chamber.

Senators then approved a proposed fix by unanimous consent, but House Democrats objected to a provision on those changes that would limit the minority’s ability to force a floor vote on a resolution of disapproval if the Trump administration were to lift sanctions Russia.

{mosads}That change was requested by House GOP leadership, and would allow only the House majority party to bring up a resolution of disapproval.

Democrats say this would be a way for Republicans in the House to offer cover to Trump.

“I don’t believe that having the president’s party in a position to protect him from any oversight is good policy for our country. And in fact, it’d be dangerous to our country,” House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters in the Capitol on Wednesday.

“For the Republicans in the House of Representatives to be afraid and unwilling to allow even the minority leader to bring up a resolution of disapproval indicates to me that they are in a protective mode,” he added.

Hoyer said that he approached Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) about possible options to resolve the impasse.

First, he plans to introduce legislation later Wednesday that would simply contain the original text of the bill passed by the Senate. That would automatically resolve the House-origination issue.

Hoyer also proposed allowing either the House majority or minority leaders to force votes on resolutions of disapproval regarding Russia sanctions policy.

A spokeswoman for Ryan dismissed Hoyer’s suggestion to reintroduce the original Senate-passed bill in the House and said the fastest way to resolve the issue would be for Democrats to sign onto the changes already approved by the upper chamber.

“This is grandstanding and not a serious effort to resolve this issue and hold Russia accountable,” Ryan press secretary AshLee Strong said.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ben Cardin (Md.), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, have expressed support for changing the language so that House Democrats can force a vote.

Hoyer said he thinks Senate Democrats didn’t understand the full impact of the procedural change requested by House GOP leaders before signing off on it.

“I think, frankly, they did not realize consequence of striking some of the language which assured a vote by everybody,” Hoyer said.

The impasse over the bipartisan sanctions bill comes as Russian interference in the 2016 election dominates headlines.

President Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday at the G-20 summit in Germany and drew criticism from both parties for proposing the U.S. and Russia work together on a cybersecurity unit. Trump backed off from the idea over the weekend after Republicans and Democrats pilloried the plan on the Sunday political shows.

And Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. revealed emails on Tuesday that showed an intermediary working with him to set up a meeting during the campaign with a Russian lawyer purporting to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

Rob Goldstone, a publicist who acted as an intermediary, said the information “would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.”

“This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump,” Goldstone added.

“If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer,” Trump Jr. replied.

Trump Jr. said later that the lawyer ended up not having any useful information.

– Jordain Carney contributed to this report, which was updated at 2:28 p.m.