Democratic lawmakers want answers from the Trump administration about recently lifted sanctions against three companies with ties to a Russian oligarch.
House Democrats said Tuesday they were considering legislation that would ensure two companies tied to Oleg Deripaska abide by an agreement that led to the U.S. removing them from a sanctions list.
The announcement by the the four Democratic chairs of the House Ways and Means, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Financial Services committees comes after the Treasury Department said Sunday that it had formally lifted sanctions imposed against aluminum firm US Rusal plc, or Rusal, En+ Group plc, or En+, and JSC EuroSibEnergo, or ESE.
The three companies are linked to Deripaska, who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Deripaska also once worked with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who has since been convicted of bank and tax fraud in Virginia and took a plea deal in Washington stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
The administration first announced in December that sanctions would be lifted against the three companies — however, the sanctions on Deripaska himself remain intact.
“The companies have also agreed to unprecedented transparency for Treasury into their operations by undertaking extensive, ongoing auditing, certification and reporting requirements. All sanctions on Deripaska continue in force,” Treasury said in a statement Sunday.
According to Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, and House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, the sanctions were lifted before Congress could review the agreement.
“Mr. Deripaska has a history of involvement with Moscow for malign purposes, and we have serious questions about whether the agreement reached between Treasury and Mr. Deripaska,” the lawmakers said.
In a letter sent Tuesday, Waters, Schiff, and Engel pressed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to turn over documents that led to the deal with Rusal, En+, and ESE.
The three lawmakers also want documents and records relating to entities and individuals “who are affected by or stand to benefit from” the removal of sanctions.
In addition, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., has requested ongoing briefings from the Trump administration on the deal it reached to cause the sanctions to be lifted.
“I ask that you timely provide the Senate Intelligence Committee with the same information [Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Congrol] requests or receives under the agreement and the results of any audits performed at OFAC’s request under the agreement so that Congress can continue its ongoing oversight of the sanctions imposed on Deripaska and his companies,“ Warner said in a letter Tuesday to Mnuchin.
Warner noted that the deal “does not remove Deripaska’s ability to control” the three companies.
Earlier this month, the Republican-controlled Senate failed to get the 60 votes needed to move a resolution that would have kept the sanctions in place.The House passed its own resolution 362-53 — a vote that included a majority of Republicans.
