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| For fuck's sake I made a deal. |
In the early weeks of the Trump administration, former Obama administration officials and State Department staffers fought an intense, behind-the-scenes battle to head off efforts by incoming officials to normalize relations with Russia, according to multiple sources familiar with the events.
Unknown to the public at the time, top Trump administration officials, almost as soon as they took office, tasked State Department staffers with developing proposals for the lifting of economic sanctions, the return of diplomatic compounds and other steps to relieve tensions with Moscow.
These efforts to relax or remove punitive measures imposed by President Obama in retaliation for Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and meddling in the 2016 election alarmed some State Department officials, who immediately began lobbying congressional leaders to quickly pass legislation to block the move, the sources said.
“There was serious consideration by the White House to unilaterally rescind the sanctions,” said Dan Fried, a veteran State Department official who served as chief U.S. coordinator for sanctions policy until he retired in late February. He said in the first few weeks of the administration, he received several “panicky” calls from U.S. government officials who told him they had been directed to develop a sanctions-lifting package and imploring him, “Please, my God, can’t you stop this?”
Fried said he grew so concerned that he contacted Capitol Hill allies — including Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., the ranking minority member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — to urge them to move quickly to pass legislation that would “codify” the sanctions in place, making it difficult for President Trump to remove them.
Yet another reminder of how much we owe President Obama and his administration.
Remember this happened only weeks after the inauguration, as if this were perhaps the most important item on the Trump agenda.
And since then there has been almost constant talk of Trump's desire to roll back those sanctions, in fact he is also planning to give back two of Russia's American based spying facilities.
Gee, it's certainly a good thing there is no evidence of collusion.MD compound was RIS SIGINT site aimed at NSA & DoD facilities on the Chesapeake. IC wanted to close it for decades. https://t.co/AgCxA2m6el— John Schindler (@20committee) May 31, 2017
Unless of course you open your eyes.
Source http://ift.tt/2rjsEky
