Russian Bully Tactics, Sanctions Talk Dominate Secretive Meeting Between GOP Senators and Russian Officials

Get your stories straight, gentlemen. The world is watching.

How many of you have heard about the group of Republican lawmakers who traveled to Russia on the week of July 4^th to meet with Russian officials, ahead of President Trump’s planned summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin?

Among topics discussed, it appears they covered the 2016 election and Russia’s interference, as well as sanctions put in place by the Obama administration because of that interference, as well as sanctions that already existed because of Russian activity in Ukraine.

Of those lawmakers who participated in this sit-down, one senator in particular, Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) came away with the opinion that sanctions are not working and that it’s time to rethink the whole thing.

I touched on Johnson’s theory over at my other gig, The Resurgent.

In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Senator Ron Johnson discussed the change of heart.

“You do something and nobody ever sits back and analyzes, ‘Well, is it working?’” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told the Washington Examiner. “And I think you’d be hard-pressed to say that sanctions against Russia are really working all that well.”

“I’ve always been concerned about the double-edged sword of economic sanctions can be used by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to blame America for any lack of economic progress — but again, on the ground, they don’t seem to be having a real horrible economic effect, not in Moscow anyway,” said Johnson, who also chairs the Foreign Relations subcommittee for Europe.

What Senator Johnson would prefer is that the U.S. target Putin’s allies and the oligarchs that surround him.

“They would love individuals who are sanctioned to have those sanctions released so they can start traveling around again,” Johnson said. “They do sting.”

“My sense is that the targeted sanctions to the oligarchs, to the members of government, are the ones that really sting and probably [offer] the best chance of affecting their behavior,” he said. “The Russian people, they don’t care if an oligarch can’t buy a $10 million mansion in London.”

Ok. That’s one way of looking at the situation.

One way, but then, there’s the totally awful, wrong, potentially dangerous way of looking at things.

Johnson didn’t just stop with claiming sanctions were ineffective. He took it so much further.

He also appeared to downplay the significance of election interference, saying it was “not the greatest threat to our democracy” and “we’ve blown it way out of proportion.”

I can’t even begin to express how wrong this is. We don’t allow hostile foreign governments to interfere with our system of government.

Somebody needs to check on Ron Johnson. He’s not making sense.

The other lawmakers who attended the same meetings with Russian officials as Johnson came away with a different impression, however. Senators Richard Shelby and John Kennedy had their say.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), who led the congressional delegation, said in an interview that he and his colleagues told their Russian counterparts that “the worst thing you can do is try to meddle in our elections.” The senators also disputed Johnson’s argument about the effectiveness of sanctions.

“The Russian leadership that we met with talked about the sanctions and how they were making no difference, but then they kept talking about the sanctions,” Kennedy said when asked about Johnson’s comments.

So Johnson was just parroting what the Russians told him? Really?

Kennedy continued:

“And we were pretty direct. I was pretty direct that if they meddle with our election this fall, they’re going to get a double dose of those sanctions,” Kennedy added. “Does that mean they’re going to stop? No. I don’t know what they’re going to do. But I thought it was important for us to deliver the message that we know what they’re doing, and we don’t appreciate it.”

One interesting point Kennedy mentioned was that the briefings they received from the U.S. embassy in Moscow was that Russian officials were under the impression that only Democrats had a problem with the aggressive actions in Ukraine and the interference in the 2016 election.

Just let that part settle in your mind, while you consider the rhetoric from Trump’s Republican party.

To Russia, a hostile foreign power, Republicans are ok with their power grabs, as well as meddling in our government. Republicans under Trump have become enablers of our geopolitical foes.

Where did they get that impression? How is allowing them to continue in that line of thinking good for us, as a nation?

“I wanted to disabuse them of that notion,” Kennedy said. “I think there’s a consensus in Congress that if Russia meddles again, then we’ll double down on the sanctions.”

The meeting was just a taste of Russian ruthlessness.

The Russian officials had what appeared to be scripted responses for everything – deny.

They also pushed through the meeting for over 10 hours, offering water and coffee to the American lawmakers, but no food.

The senators said the most tense meetings were with Lavrov—the foreign minister—and with the leader of the Duma and some of his deputies. The conversations with Russian senators (members of the Council of the Federation) were more cordial.

“He’s a bully, and he tried to bully us,” Kennedy said of Lavrov. “But we made our point. And they understand where we stand.”

Senator Shelby doesn’t get out of all this unscathed.

Shelby himself was the center of attention ahead of the Moscow trip after he appeared to justify Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, saying: “We’ve done a lot of things, too.” He later clarified that he was not excusing Russia’s meddling, and upon his return to Washington, he took a much harder line against Moscow.

Didn’t Trump make a similar claim, in defense of Russia?

“Listen, I’ve been around since I was a kid and Stalin was running things. Have you ever known them to admit anything? I mean, it’s the Russian view of the world. But the question of can we improve it—they will have to earn their way. We’ve got a lot of grievances,” Shelby said.

They don’t intend to improve anything, especially when they have what they feel is a sympathetic party in control of the United States.

They need to have their minds changed.

With President Trump in Brussels now, attempting to dismantle NATO and planning a cozy sidebar with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, I wouldn’t count on it.