Ed Royce: Trump should sanction Russian oligarchs on Treasury’s list

President Trump should use a newly-produced government report on Russian oligarchs as a target-list for sanctions, according to a top Republican lawmaker.

“We’ve always known that corruption is key to Vladimir Putin’s continued power and the funding for his dangerous and destabilizing foreign policies,” House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said Tuesday. “I look forward to continuing to work with the administration to target corruption that hurts the Russian people and threatens vital U.S. interests.”

Royce’s call builds on a report that the Treasury Department released late Monday, pursuant to a sanctions law that called for the identification of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest and wealthiest associates. Trump administration officials stressed, upon release, that the report is not a sanctions list. But Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin allowed that might change.

“There will be sanctions that come out of this report,” Mnuchin told the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday. “We will take the basis of that report and look at, as we do in the normal course, where it’s appropriate to put sanctions. This should in no way be interpreted as we’re not putting sanctions on any of the people in that report.”

That said, the report also became a basis of fresh criticism of the Trump team.

“I know personally many of the business people on this list,” former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul tweeted. “Some are very close to Putin. Some are not. Obviously, little work was done to distinguish between these [two] categories.”

The list was compiled by reference to the Forbes ranking of Russia’s wealthiest tycoons, per a BuzzFeed report.

Still, Royce believes the report advances the opportunity to target Putin’s unofficial allies in Russian society.

“Putin relies on corruption to retain power, foster instability in the Middle East, and attempt to destabilize Western democracies — including the United States,” he wrote in a letter to Mnuchin.

“I ask that the Treasury Department review the individuals and entities in this report and determine whether they should be designated under existing U.S. sanctions authorities, including those outlined above.”

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