[Trump’s] administration has intensified economic pressure on Moscow over what it describes as “malign Russian activity” in Ukraine and Syria and Russia’s attempts to disrupt western democracies.
Two senior officials from the State and Treasury departments told a Senate hearing Tuesday that since January 2017, 217 Russian business people, officials, and private and state-run companies, including 14 banks and 20 energy firms, have been sanctioned. In addition, they recalled that the administration had expelled 60 Russian spies and closed Russia’s consulates in San Francisco and Seattle.
Marshall Billingslea, the Treasury Department’s top terrorist financing official, acknowledged that the threat from Russia was “significant and continuing” but told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that without the sanctions “their behavior would be even further off the charts.”
He and the State Department’s top diplomat for Europe, Wess Mitchell, said Russia is feeling the impact, costing its economy tens of billions of dollars, with companies under sanctions losing a quarter of their operating revenue and having to shed employees.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by none other than 4’2” eyes of blue Bob Corker, is the official TDS Committee. They spend 90% hashing over how dangerous and unhinged Trump is v dictators of other countries.
I’ll say one thing about Wess Mitchell… he’s an articulate, determined young man, who not only represents and supports his boss, but firmly pushes back against derogatory comments, stated or inferred. He put Corker in his place several times, even Bob Menendez toned down his rhetoric. The guys a rock star.
Flake and Corker have hinted they’ll run in 2020. Hope they’re on the ticket together. Mutt and Jeff.
Corker is such a toad. Menendez should be in jail, and Flake will probably OD on K2 by the summer of 2019.
Agree with the above!!!!