Category Archives: Failed foreign policy

Foreign Agents in DC, at the White House?

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Romanian leader seeks more Trump meetings

A Romanian politician sentenced to jail for rigging elections is trying to arrange meetings with Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), according to recent Justice Department filings.

Liviu Dragnea, who is speaker of Romanian Parliament’s lower chamber and party president, received a two-year suspended jail sentence last year for trying to rig a referendum election to impeach the country’s president.

Now, his Social Democratic Party is paying Washington public-affairs group Madison & Co. $100,000 to introduce Dragnea to Pence and Ryan “as soon as possible” and to arrange “political, media and academic meetings” for Dragnea. Operatives working on the case include Madison & Co. president Al Madison; Democratic lobbyist and “rainmaker” William Oldaker; Drew Willison, Senate Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid’s (Nev.) final chief of staff; and William Harris, a Republican operative who “has worked for the Trump Organization on a variety of political and business matters,” according to a disclosure filing. The Justice Department has not yet released disclosures forms for Oldaker or Willison.

This wouldn’t be Dragnea’s first brush with members of the current administration. In the days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Dragnea met with the president-elect, now-former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Ed Royce (R-Calif), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

*** Remember Guccifer is Romanian.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act is in fact a joke, but quite a lucrative one if you are part of a Washington DC law firm. As noted on the website, under the guidance and management of the Department of Justice:

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was enacted in 1938. FARA is a disclosure statute that requires persons acting as agents of foreign principals in a political or quasi-political capacity to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities. Disclosure of the required information facilitates evaluation by the government and the American people of the statements and activities of such persons in light of their function as foreign agents. The FARA Registration Unit of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section (CES) in the National Security Division (NSD) is responsible for the administration and enforcement of the Act.

The person at the Justice Department who is in charge of this division was Dana Boente. He suddenly resigned last week…..hummmm. Boente assumed the position of Deputy Attorney General, when Trump fired Sally Yates when she refused to defend Trump’s travel suspension executive order. Boente declared he would defend in court that executive order, but was that really true since he suddenly resigned?

Seems Boente was selected to oversee the department’s division handling the probe into alleged Russian election interference, overseeing efforts on cybersecurity and counterintelligence.

Another hummm

So back to foreign lobby and continued foreign interference in DC…

*** In part from Politico:

The last time I can remember a stir about a lobby firm evading disclosure law was in 2004, when Qorvis Communications’ offices were raided by the FBI in a probe about its work for the royal family of Saudi Arabia. However, nothing much came of it, and business carried on as usual among Washington lobbyists. Two years ago, reportedly, a number of Qorvis lobbyists quit because they were uncomfortable with the firm’s work. According to this 2015 story in the New York Observer, more than a third of Qorvis partners had left the firm—to start their own lobby shops—“partly because of the firm’s work on behalf of such clients as Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the Central African nation of Equatorial Guinea,” reported the Huffington Post. “‘I just have trouble working with despotic dictators killing their own people,’ said one Qorvis insider.”

The last time I can remember a stir about a lobby firm evading disclosure law was in 2004, when Qorvis Communications’ offices were raided by the FBI in a probe about its work for the royal family of Saudi Arabia. However, nothing much came of it, and business carried on as usual among Washington lobbyists. Two years ago, reportedly, a number of Qorvis lobbyists quit because they were uncomfortable with the firm’s work. According to this 2015 story in the New York Observer, more than a third of Qorvis partners had left the firm—to start their own lobby shops—“partly because of the firm’s work on behalf of such clients as Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the Central African nation of Equatorial Guinea,” reported the Huffington Post. “‘I just have trouble working with despotic dictators killing their own people,’ said one Qorvis insider.”

 

U.S Should Follow Europe’s Lead on Cyber

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Imagine that….Europe may be more right on this issue than the United States is due to congress where decisions just cannot be made.

Going back to 2011, the Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.

In 2016, Pentagon leaders are still working to determine when, exactly, a cyber-attack against the U.S. would constitute an act of war, and when, exactly, the Defense Department would respond to a cyber-attack on civilian infrastructure, a senior Defense Department official told lawmakers on Wednesday.

A cyber strike as an act of war “has not been defined,” Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security Thomas Atkin told the House Armed Services Committee. “We’re still working toward that definition.” More here.

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Related reading: North Korea’s Elite Cyber Soldiers Hacked Top Secret Warship Blueprints, Seoul Lawmaker Says

So, is Europe ahead of the United States on this issue?

EU governments to warn cyber attacks can be an act of war

European Union governments will formally state that cyber attacks can be an act of war in a show of strength to countries such as Russia and North Korea.

Diplomats and ambassadors in Brussels have drafted a document, obtained by The Telegraph, that represents an unprecedented deterrent aimed at countries using hackers and cyber espionage against EU members.

The document, set to be agreed by all 28 EU members states, including Britain, in the coming weeks warns that individual member states could respond “in grave instances” to cyber attacks with conventional weapons.

The British government has now said it was all but certain that North Korea was behind the “WannaCry” malware attack that hit NHS IT systems in May. Work on the EU paper began among fears that Russia would attempt to influence this year’s German elections and over hybrid warfare employed in Ukraine. More here.

This could be a pretext for what is a probable threat.

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Banks fearing North Korea hacking prepare defenses: cyber experts

WASHINGTON/TORONTO (Reuters) – Global banks are preparing to defend themselves against North Korea potentially intensifying a years-long hacking spree by seeking to cripple financial networks as Pyongyang weighs the threat of U.S. military action over its nuclear program, cyber security experts said.

North Korean hackers have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from banks during the past three years, including a heist in 2016 at Bangladesh Bank that yielded $81 million, according to Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer at cyber security firm CrowdStrike.

Alperovitch told the Reuters Cyber Security Summit on Tuesday that banks were concerned Pyongyang’s hackers may become more destructive by using the same type of “wiper” viruses they deployed across South Korea and at Sony Corp’s (6758.T) Hollywood studio.

The North Korean government has repeatedly denied accusations by security researchers and the U.S. government that it has carried out cyber attacks.

North Korean hackers could leverage knowledge about financial networks gathered during cyber heists to disrupt bank operations, according to Alperovitch, who said his firm has conducted “war game” exercises for several banks.

“The difference between theft and destruction is often a few keystrokes,” Alperovitch said.

Security teams at major U.S. banks have shared information on the North Korean cyber threat in recent months, said a second cyber security expert familiar with those talks.

“We know they attacked South Korean banks,” said the source, who added that fears have grown that banks in the United States will be targeted next.

Tensions between Washington and Pyongyang have been building after a series of nuclear and missile tests by North Korea and bellicose verbal exchanges between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

John Carlin, a former U.S. assistant attorney general, told the Reuters summit that other firms, among them defense contractors, retailers and social media companies, were also concerned.

“They are thinking ‘Are we going to see an escalation in attacks from North Korea?’” said Carlin, chair of Morrison & Foerster international law firm’s global risk and crisis management team.

Jim Lewis, a cyber expert with Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it is unlikely that North Korea would launch destructive attacks on American banks because of concerns about U.S. retaliation.

Representatives of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the top U.S. banking regulators, declined to comment. Both have ramped up cyber security oversight in recent years.

For other Reuters Cyber Summit news click on www.reuters.com/cyberrisk

Oh Hillary, David and Congress, Gotta a Few Questions for You

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Bring your Podesta boys along for the ride to explain all this please. Did a handful of people sign waivers for this these transactions? Any lawyers out there than can explain this?

Sept. 12, 2014: US Treasury/

WASHINGTON – Due to continued Russian efforts to destabilize eastern Ukraine, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew today determined that persons operating within Russia’s defense and related materiel sector may now be subject to targeted sanctions under Executive Order 13662.  In addition, the U.S. Department of the Treasury today extended targeted financial sanctions to Russia’s largest bank, deepened existing sanctions on Russian financial institutions, expanded sanctions in Russia’s energy sector, and increased the number of sanctioned Russian entities in the energy and defense sectors.
•         Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew has made a determination that persons operating within Russia’s defense and related materiel sector may now be subject to targeted sanctions under Executive Order 13662.  Following Secretary Lew’s determination, Treasury has imposed sanctions that prohibit transactions by U.S. persons or within the United States involving new debt of greater than 30 days maturity issued by Rostec, a major Russian conglomerate that operates in the defense and related materiel sector.
•         Treasury has added Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank of Russia, to the existing prohibitions on U.S. persons providing equity or certain long-term debt financing.  In addition, we have tightened the debt financing restrictions by reducing from 90 days to 30 days the maturity period for new debt issued by the six Russian banks subject to this restriction.  These banks are Bank of Moscow, Gazprombank OAO, Russian Agricultural Bank, Sberbank, VEB, and VTB Bank.
•         Treasury has designated and blocked the assets of five Russian state-owned defense technology firms – OAO ‘Dolgoprudny Research Production Enterprise,’ Mytishchinski Mashinostroitelny Zavod OAO, Kalinin Machine Plant JSC, Almaz-Antey GSKB, and JSC NIIP – for operating in the arms or related materiel sector in Russia.
•         Treasury has also imposed sanctions that prohibit the exportation of goods, services (not including financial services), or technology in support of exploration or production for Russian deepwater, Arctic offshore, or shale projects that have the potential to produce oil, to five Russian energy companies – Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, Surgutneftegas, and Rosneft – involved in these types of projects.  This measure complements restrictions administered by the Commerce Department and is similar to new EU measures published today.  U.S. persons have until September 26, 2014 to wind down applicable transactions with these entities pursuant to a general license that Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued today.
Okay got that now? Great…now how about Hillary’s top friend, campaign chairman and money man, John Podesta and that funky Podesta Group?
Seems in March of 2016, those Podesta fellers signed a lobby agreement with Sberbank. But there is a set of US Treasury sanctions on that bank. Is that legal? Anyone? What is ironic here is that lobby agreement goes to both houses of congress. So anyone interested or has access knows this about those Podesta boys and about that Russian bank. (Notice the top of that document)
Okay…there are 3 names listed on the lobby document:
Anthony Podesta, Principal of The Podesta Group
Stephen Rademaker, Former National Security Deputy for the Senate Majority Leader, worked at Podesta Group and is now at Covington and Burling. Interestingly enough, his wife is Danielle Pletka who is a Vice President at the American Enterprise Institute.
David Adams, Former assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs and chief legislative adviser to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Meanwhile, this Rademaker fella wrote this statement on Russia being a threat in May of this year, 2017:

Principal, The Podesta Group “The Growing Russian Military Threat in Europe:
Assessing and Addressing the Challenge”  Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
May 17, 2017
What?
Hold on, there is more:

Also of interest is the fact that this is not first time the Podestas have been involved with Sberbank. Back in 2009, Sberbank was intimately involved in the Russian deal to purchase Uranium One. Uranium One, a company whose holdings included 20 percent of the U.S.’ uranium ore, was owned by Frank Giustra, one of Bill Clinton’s closest friends and an integral part of the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s sale to the Russian state atomic agency, besides having been facilitated by the Hillary Clinton-led State Department, was aided by the Podesta Group, who represented Giustra’s company and lobbied to advance the transaction.

In 2012, that same Podesta Group was paid $40,000 to represent the Uranium One deal to three agencies of which the Senate has committee oversight. There were: U.S. SENATE, Natl Park Service (NPS), Natl Security Council (NSC), State – Dept of (DOS). Again, this same form went to both houses of Congress.

Clinton flew with Giustra in September 2005 on a private jet to Kazakhstan. There, the mining tycoon negotiated with that nation’s mining agency, Kazataprom, for rights to three mines. After Clinton appeared publicly in support of Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had just allegedly won an election with more than 90 percent of the vote, the mining deal was approved.

Months later, Giustra donated $31 million to the Clinton Foundation with a pledge of $100 million more.

In 2007, UrAsia Energy, with its access to Kazakhstan’s lucrative mines, merged with South Africa’s Uranium One in a $3.5 billion deal.

Just some additional facts to add to your notes….

Beirut Marine Barracks Bombing Still Reverberates

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The bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut still reverberate today. In a Congressional hearing in 2015, Iran’s role was included.

Secrets of the 1983 Beirut Bombings: The role of Iran’s IRGC

The 1983 double bombing in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, left 241 American service members, 58 French military personnel and six civilians killed, alongside hundreds of others injured.

21 years later in 2004 Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) unveiled a “monument” in “honor” of that terrorist attack.

This “memorial” column, installed in a section dubbed “Martyrs of the Islamic World” in Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery, carried a very vivid message: Iran’s IRGC was behind the 1983 blast targeting the peacekeeping force in Beirut.

34 years have passed since that attack and today the IRGC has been designated a terrorist organization by the US Treasury Department. Such a measure deserves praise, yet is long overdue.

On October 23 of that year a suicide bomber drove a water tanker into the US Marines barracks and detonated around 1,000 kilograms of explosives (equal to 15,000 to 21,000 pounds of TNT), transferred with large trucks into buildings where the Multi-National Forces in Lebanon were stationed.

The United Nations was involved in a broader peacekeeping mission to bring an end to the Lebanese civil wars. The Islamic Jihad, an Iranian offspring terrorist group, claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Background

In line with its pillar policy of exporting terrorism and warmongering across the Middle East, one of Iran’s first objectives was to launch a central command base for the IRGC and its local mercenaries in Lebanon. These elements were initially dispersed in towns and villages of the Baalbek area in eastern Lebanon near the border Jordan.

In 1980, coinciding with Tehran paving the grounds to ignite the Iran-Iraq War, then Iranian regime leader Ayatollah Khomeini dispatched former IRGC commander Mohsen Rezaee to Lebanon to blueprint possible terrorist attacks and hostage taking measures in this country, considered Iran’s “strategic depth.”

(R-L) Mohsen Rezaee, Anis al-Naqqash, Mohamed Salih al-Hosseini and Mohsen Rafighdoust – Beirut, 1980. (Supplied)

On September 10, 2003, Iran’s state-run Mashreq daily published a photo imaging Rezaee, former IRGC logistics officer Mohsen Rafighdoust, former IRGC foreign relations officer Mohammad Saleh al-Hosseini and Lebanese terrorist Anis al-Naqqash, said to be behind the first assassination attempt targeting former Iranian Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar in 1980.

With support provided by the IRGC and under the command of former defense minister Hossein Dehghan, the Lebanese Hezbollah took over the Sheikh Abdullah Base in early September 1983. This site was the main center of the Lebanese Army in Bekaa Valley, and was later renamed Imam and transformed to become the IRGC’s main command center in Lebanon.

From this very site the IRGC controlled Hezbollah militia units and directed the Beirut bombings alongside senior Hezbollah commanders, most specifically the known terrorist Imad Mughniyah.

The orders for the Beirut bombings were first issued by the IRGC to Ali Akbar Mohtashemipour, Iran’s then ambassador to Syria. He then relayed the orders to IRGC units stationed in Beirut under Dehghan’s command.

The Islamic Jihad organization was in fact a special ops branch. Until its final days in 1992 this entity was jointly commanded by the Lebanese Hezbollah and IRGC.

Following the Beirut bombings France began aerial attacks in the Bekaa Valley targeting IRGC-linked bases. The US responded to these terrorist attacks by planning raids on the Sheikh Abdullah Base where the IRGC was training Hezbollah militias.

On July 20th, 1987, Iran’s Resalat daily wrote the Beirut bombings citing Rafiqdoust, “… both the TNT and ideology behind the attacks that sent 400 American officers and soldiers to hell in the U.S. Marines command base in Beirut came from Iran.”

34 years have passed since that attack and today the IRGC has been designated a terrorist organization by the US Treasury Department. (Supplied)

On August 14th, 2005, World Net Daily wrote in this regard: “…Two years ago, a US federal court order identified the suicide bomber as Ismail Ascari, an Iranian national.”

Tehran expressing joy

There should be no feeling of positivity in response to terrorist attacks, no matter where in the world. Terrorism is terrorism.

Yet the Iranian regime follows no such standards.

The state-run Rasekhoon website posted a piece literally praising the Beirut double attack.

“…Two massive explosions, six minutes apart, levelled the US Marines command center and the interventionist French forces command base … The heroic reaction… against US and French bases in Beirut delivered a heavy blow to Western powers and forced them to leave Lebanon in a humiliating manner.”

The legal war

“A US federal judge has ordered Iran to pay more than $813 million in damages and interest to the families of 241 US soldiers killed in the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Lebanon,” according to Agence France-Presse.

“After this opinion, this court will have issued over $8.8 billion in judgments against Iran as a result of the 1983 Beirut bombing,” Judge Royce Lamberth, presiding over this case, wrote in the ruling.

In late April of last year Iran’s state-run Javan daily, said to be affiliated to the IRGC, wrote:

“In 2003 relatives of the US Marines killed in Lebanon’s terrorist bombings 30 years ago, successfully gained the opinion of a U.S. appeals court to receive compensation from Iran. Four years later, in 2007, a U.S. federal court issued an order demanding this payment be extracted from Iran’s frozen assets.”

In September 2013 a US federal court in New York presided by Judge Katherine Forrest ruled in favor of the families of the Beirut bombings victims.

In July 2014 an appeals court in New York turned down a request filed by Iran’s Central Bank and ordered $1.75 billion in compensation from Tehran’s frozen assets be distributed amongst the victims’ families. This ruling was issued by a three-judge panel of the 2nd branch of New York’s federal appeals court.
That same year Iran’s Central Bank filed for an appeal, arguing this ruling is in violation of US’ obligation according to accords signed back in 1955. With their notion turned down, Iran’s Central Bank referred the case to the US Supreme Court.

On April 20th, 2016, America’s highest court ordered $2 billion dollars from Iran’s blocked assets to be extracted and used to pay the families of the Beirut bombings victims. Enjoying 6 votes in favor in the face of two against, this order was adopted despite Iran’s Central Bank request for an appeal.

The status quo

For more than thirty years the curtains have gradually fallen and the true face of Iran’s IRGC, as a source of support for terrorism, has become crystal clear. Rest assured the footprints of this notorious entity will be found in more crimes inside Iran, around the Middle East and across the globe.

This is further proof of the necessity of strong measures against the IRGC as the epicenter of Iran’s war machine.

Utter belligerence has been Tehran’s offspring for four long decades. The time has come to say enough is enough.

The victims of the 1983 Beirut double bombings, and literally the millions of others who have perished due to Iran’s policies, should know their blood was not shed in vein.

WH and State Dept Slowed Walked Russian Sanctions

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While many are questioning Robert Mueller’s role into the Russian investigation, be sure to understand Russian operatives had an open door for at least 8 years and earlier than that there were clandestine Russian spy rings functioning across the country.

Much less there are dead Russians in the UK as well as in the United States, the risks are extraordinary.

Thanks to the Democrats and the greed of money where Russia was happy to comply for agreements to all their requests, the Russian probe goes beyond that common term of collusion.

The Obama administration launched the back channels for nuclear talks with Iran in 2009 in Oman. Obama needed the Russian vote, so all things concocted by the Kremlin were given a wink and nod by the Obama White House as well as the Hillary and John Kerry State Department.

So, we now have the Trump White House which has been slow and measured to take additional actions regarding Russia. The ‘why’ has a convoluted answer. There is/was Russian hacking. There were/are Russian trolls and bots in social media. There is Russian involvement in Silicon Valley known as Skolkovo. There is conflicted military airspace in Syria. There is Russian support of the Taliban. There are Russian operations in Cuba, Latin America, Libya, Iraq, Ukraine (…)

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Medvedev and Putin have a master plan and they are calculating and effective. One action results in unknown global consequences.

So, finally the Tillerson State Department provided approval of additional sanctions on Russia and Congress has the list. Is it enough or complete? Too early to know. However, the Magnitsky Act is gaining approval in countries allied to United States and Putin is seeking revenge by any means necessary including through Interpol.

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Read on:

WASHINGTON — The State Department gave Congress a list Thursday of 39 Russian individuals and entities it says support the Russian government’s intelligence and defense sectors. Early next year, anyone in the U.S. doing business with entities on that list will be hit with sanctions by the Trump administration.

“Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has authorized the department to issue guidance to the public specifying the persons or entities that are part of or operating on behalf of the defense or intelligence sectors of the government of the Russian Federation,” said State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert.

After President Trump signed sanctions legislation in August, the administration gave the State and Treasury Departments the authority to draw up a list of entities that enable Moscow’s intelligence and defense sectors. The State Department had a deadline of October 1 to send the list to Congress. Now, nearly a month late, State has done so.

There had been growing criticism that the administration was slow-walking the process. The State Department cited the complexity of the process when asked about the delay. Nauert also explained that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is “very hands-on in these types of things.”

Experts on Russia who reviewed the list, which was obtained by CBS News, say it covers most of the Russian defense sector.

“This seems to be a comprehensive list that broadly covers a significant portion of the Russian defense industry,” said Mark Simakovsky, a former Defense Department official and Atlantic Council fellow. “The administration likely took very seriously the review, required of the legislation, and has sought to abide by the terms.”

Five of the six Russian defense contractors listed on the State and Treasury list are among the 100 biggest defense companies worldwide.

Rosoboronexport OJSC, which is on the list, is one of Russia’s largest exporters of defense products. Its partner company, Rostec, promotes technology products in both the civil and defense sectors and is also on the list. On the intelligence side, the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) are included.

The State Department is making the entire list public in advance of actual sanctions implementation in order to alert U.S. stakeholders, primarily those who do business with these companies, early notice, so they can draw down those transactions. If they don’t, they, too, will face sanctions.

“These are the types of entities that they can no longer do business with,” State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. “So it helps them to at least make their business decisions and be able to decide on the best course of action going forward,” she said.”

Making the list public before sanctions go into effect is a departure from the usual State Department policy of waiting for the sanctions to be announced. Congressional aides acknowledged that this caveat, which essentially enables both U.S. companies and the Russian companies to prepare, was a concern as the legislation was nearing its final hours before passage. In the end, there was no major effort to change this.

Once the Senate passed its sanctions legislation with an overwhelming majority, it put pressure on the House to pass it as well. Democrats applied intense pressure not to change anything because they did not want to water down the bill.

Senator Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the list a “good first step in responsibly implementing a very complex piece of legislation.” Senators Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, and John McCain, R-Arizona also welcomed the list as part of the effort to hold Russia accountable for interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The two senators noted that questions remain about the implementation of the sanctions. Under the current plan, beginning Jan. 29, individuals involved in “significant” transactions with entities on the list will also be sanctioned. It’s still up to the State Department to determine how the sanctions are applied. McCain and Cardin are concerned about how the agency will come up with the staffing and resources to carry out the sanctions. In their statement they pointed out reports that say the sanctions office has been closed and “a number of its staff have resigned.” The policy planning staff, which doesn’t usually play a role in operations, is being tasked with implementing the sanctions.

Providing dedicated staffing and resources within the State Department will demonstrate the administration’s commitment to carrying out this vitally important law,” wrote McCain and Cardin.

The sanctions law signed by Mr. Trump in August targeted Iran and North Korea, in addition to Russia. It maintains and expands sanctions against the Russian government, Russian crude oil projects and also targets those who evade foreign sanctions and entities that abuse human rights. The legislation also prevents the president from unilaterally easing or lifting sanctions against Russia, a provision that came after Mr. Trump had consistently espoused the idea of a warming of relations with Russia, even in the face of the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia had meddled in the 2016 elections.