Rand Paul wants Trump to lift US travel sanctions on some Russian lawmakers
Source: CNN
Washington (CNN)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.'"
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Paul was among the most vocal Republican lawmakers to support the US President after Trump's news conference in Helsinki, Finland, with Putin. Trump was widely criticized by members of his own party for appearing to side with Putin over the US intelligence community's assessment that Russia interfered in the US presidential elections. Trump later said he misspoke, but Paul accused the President's critics of "Trump derangement syndrome."
"Any country that can spy does, and any country that can meddle in foreign elections does," Paul said on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" last month. Paul continued, "All countries are doing this, but we've elevated this to a higher degree, and we've made this all about the sour grapes of Hillary Clinton losing the election, and it's all about partisan politics now. This is truly the Trump derangement syndrome that motivates all of this."
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/17/politics/rand-paul-russian-lawmakers-sanctions/
"Any country that can spy does, and any country that can meddle in foreign elections does," Paul said on CNN's
I wonder what Putin/Russia have on Paul? Rand is one more republican treason weasel.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Rand Paul’s Russian Connection
Paul names controversial Kremlin expert foreign policy adviser
BY: Alana Goodman Follow @alanagoodman
August 20, 2014 9:59 am
Dimitri K. Simes (born Dmitry Kostantinovich Simis, Russian: Дмитрий Константинович Симис )
Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) has named as one of his key foreign policy advisers a controversial Russia policy expert with deep ties to the Kremlin.
Dimitri Simes, the president of the Center for the National Interest, and Ambassador Richard Burt, a member of the Center’s board of directors, are recent additions to Paul’s foreign policy advisory team, the senator told National Journal earlier this year.
For years, Simes and the center have provided a sympathetic platform for the Russian government in the heart of the D.C. policy establishment. Its ties to Moscow extend throughout the organization.
The advisory council of the National Interest, the center’s chief publication, includes Alexey Pushkov, a Russian Duma official recently targeted for sanctions by the U.S. government in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Pushkov has come under fire for claiming that the Bush administration orchestrated the September 11 attacks and for blaming the 2013 Navy Yard shooting on "American exceptionalism."
A former aide to Richard Nixon, Simes is publisher of the National Interest, a hotbed of "realist" foreign policy thinking that boasts Henry Kissinger as its honorary chairman.
Simes’ views and connections are widely known in Russia policy circles. Last September, days after Vladimir Putin published a column in the New York Times denouncing American exceptionalism, Simes joined the Russian president on stage at the Valdai International Discussion Club forum in Russia for a televised panel discussion.
Flanked by three other panelists—Germany’s former defense minister and France and Italy’s former prime ministers—Simes seemed out of place at the high-ranking, Kremlin-sponsored forum.
"No one directly addresses Putin at Dimitri Simes’ level," noted one Washington-based Russia policy expert. "It just doesn’t happen."
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