The refusal of President Donald Trump to implement sanctions on Russia for meddling in last year’s presidential election “is perplexing to me,” U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said Tuesday.
Collins told CNN’s “New Day” that the Russian sanction measure “was not partisan in the least” and secured the Senate’s backing with only two dissenting votes. The House also approved it in a nearly unanimous vote.
Collins called the law “balanced and needed” given that “the Russians did attempt to meddle in our elections.”
The president, who signed the measure in August, had until this week to impose sanctions on those who conducted significant business with the military and intelligence sectors in Russia.
But the State Department said the law was already thwarting Russian arms sales without taking the next step of imposing the sanctions.
In a statement released Monday, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert estimated that “foreign governments have abandoned planned or announced purchases of several billion dollars in Russian defense acquisitions” because of the law.
Experts said that imposing the sanctions, whether justified or not, might crimp military purchases by U.S. allies, including some NATO countries. Others worried that failing to follow through on the sanctions might spur more Russian interference in democratic elections around the world.
Collins said on CNN the country also needs “to put safeguards in place right now for the elections for this year, because we know that the Russians have not given up on their disinformation campaign and their attempt to sow discord in this country and also to undermine faith in democratic institutions.”
She said Russia has also “tried it in Western Europe and in Montenegro. So we need to act now to try to stop that.”
scollins@sunjournal.com
Sen. Susan Collins says it is “perplexing” that the White House has not imposed new sanctions on Russia after 98 of 100 senators voted for the sanctions. https://t.co/P7br1FJTus pic.twitter.com/h3e8Lrdih4
— New Day (@NewDay) January 30, 2018
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U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine talking about Russia on CNN’s “New Day” Tuesday.
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