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Frederica Wilson: Trump won’t impose Russia sanctions because ‘they have something on him’

by Morgan Gstalter - 01/31/18 5:59 PM ET

Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), one of President Trump’s fiercest critics in the House, says he isn’t imposing new sanctions on Russia because “they have something on him.”

“The House and the Senate voted on all kinds of sanctions against Russia,” Wilson said Tuesday, according to the Miami Herald. “Now, the president yesterday announced he wasn’t going to impose those sanctions. They have something on him. And if he imposes sanctions against Russia, they’re going to tell what they have on him.”

Trump is facing backlash for declining earlier this week to impose new sanctions against Russia, despite Congress voting for them overwhelmingly last year. White House officials said the threat of sanctions had already been acting as a deterrent.

{mosads}Wilson added that she is suspicious of Trump’s Russia connection because he has consistently tried to disrupt the investigations into Moscow’s 2016 election interference.

“While it is not clear that President Trump and his team of political neophytes were sophisticated enough to collude with Russian intelligence operatives during his campaign, his administration’s seeming unwillingness to impose sanctions on Russia in response to its interference in the 2016 election — as required by law — raises a lot of questions,” she said.

Wilson added that if Trump were totally innocent, his administration would allow special counsel Robert Mueller to complete his investigation “unfettered.”

“Given recent remarks both he and several GOP lawmakers have made maligning the investigation and the hardworking men and women of the FBI tells me that there may indeed be a lot of ‘there’ there.”

Wilson, who boycotted Trump’s first State of the Union address on Tuesday, openly feuded with the president last year over a phone call he placed to a recent Gold Star widow. Wilson, a family friend who overheard the call, said Trump was callous and insensitive, telling Myeshia Johnson that her husband, Sgt. La David Johnson, knew what he signed up for, and failing to remember the late Green Beret’s name.

Trump repeatedly denied Wilson’s account of the call, and his chief of staff John Kelly attacked her as a shameless self-promoter during a White House press briefing.

“I hope the Fake News Media keeps talking about Wacky Congresswoman Wilson in that she, as a representative, is killing the Democrat Party!” Trump wrote on Twitter in October.

Wilson said the feud led to death threats.

Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday that the administration will still impose sanctions on dozens of wealthy Russians. The department released a list, reportedly derived from Forbes rankings, detailing Russian “oligarchs” with powerful business and political connections.