GOP fight brews over Russia sanctions

Team Trump wants them – although they were moderating their talk yesterday:

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he is only in the early stages of considering whether to lift U.S. sanctions on Russia, as British Prime Minister Theresa May, other foreign officials and U.S. lawmakers cautioned that such a move would be premature.

With Trump expected to speak by phone on Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time since taking power a week ago, speculation has been rife that he is close to lifting sanctions imposed by then-President Barack Obama over Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula in 2014.

There had, of course, been a lot of talk from Trump himself about lifting the sanctions entirely, so this qualified as a big flip-flop already. And this comment from the Senate’s most unpredictable Republican can’t help:

U.S. Senator John McCain, commenting on Friday on speculation that President Donald Trump may lift sanctions on Russia, said he hoped the administration would reject that “reckless course.”

“If he does not, I will work with my colleagues to codify sanctions against Russia into law,” McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and one of the Republican party’s senior foreign policy voices, said in a statement.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.