Congress sends veto-proof measure on sanctions for Russia, others to Trump

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday to pass a bill increasing sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea, establishing veto-proof majorities for the measure that also allows Congress to block President Donald Trump from easing sanctions against Moscow.

The 98-to-2 vote sets the president up with a pivotal choice: veto the bill knowing that lawmakers are prepared to override, as his communications chief Anthony Scaramucci suggested Thursday morning on CNN that he might, or sign the legislation that binds his hands when it comes to altering sanctions policy against Moscow, a provision his administration lobbied hard against.

Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., were the only senators to vote against the bill.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to say whether the president would veto the bill.

“We’re going to wait and see what that final legislation looks like, and make a decision at that point,” she said.

But in an interview on CNN earlier in the day, Scaramucci said that Trump “may veto the sanctions” in order to “negotiate an even tougher deal against the Russians.”

It is unlikely that promise will be persuasive to members of Congress, who banded together in near-unanimous numbers to endorse unprecedented oversight powers over the president’s sanctions authority, a sign of many lawmakers’ concerns that Trump is fostering a too warm relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and may scale back punitive measures against Moscow.

Under the bill, the president is required to notify Congress before making any alterations to Russia sanctions policy, and lawmakers then have 30 days in which they can block the president from implementing those changes. The procedure, known as “congressional review,” is the most sweeping authority Congress has given itself to check the president on sanctions policy in decades.

Such matters have traditionally been left to the executive branch once Congress authorizes the sanctions at the administration’s disposal.

But lawmakers are worried by hints that the Trump administration might make concessions to Russia, specifically sanctions that the Kremlin has sought to have lifted. The administration has considered handing back to Russia control of two U.S. compounds the Obama administration seized at the end of last year, accusing Moscow of using them for intelligence purposes..

Earlier this week, the House passed the same legislation by a vote of 419 to 3.