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Rand Paul Wants Trump To Lift US Travel Sanctions on Some Russian Lawmakers

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Republican Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday that he plans to ask President Donald Trump to lift sanctions on members of the Russian legislature so that they are able to travel to the United States.

 

The Kentucky senator, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, invited the Russian lawmakers to the US capital during a trip to Moscow in early August.

 

He told Fox News on Thursday that members of both houses of the Russian Federal Assembly have “agreed to come to Washington in the fall for further meetings.”

 

“That’s a good thing,” Paul said. “The downside is the chairman of each of the committees is banned from coming to the United States because of sanctions. So one of the things I’m going to ask the President I’m going to talk to the President this weekend is I’m going to say, ‘why don’t we take people off the list who are in the legislature.'”

 

Valentina Matviyenko, the chairwoman of the Federation Council the upper House of the Russian legislature and Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the State Duma the lower House are prohibited from traveling to the US.

 

They were among dozens of individuals sanctioned in March 2014 by the Obama White House for their role in Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, including the annexation of Crimea.

 

Both lawmakers have close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and both were named on the “Putin List,” released by the Treasury Department in January 2018, that was meant to punish Russia for US election interference.

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