The US Treasury Department plans to take the next step on Russia sanctions established following interference in the 2016 election on Monday and issue what’s expected to be a “name and shame” list of companies and individuals that will be sanctioned for doing businesses with blacklisted Russian entities.
“The Department of Treasury does plan to act today to issue a report and take this process the next step forward,” White House principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah told CNN’s “New Day” Monday morning.
A White House official told CNN later Monday morning that their expectation is that the report will list individuals who might be in violation.
The sanctions were mandated by Congress in a bill passed last year. Trump called the legislation, which passed nearly unanimously in Congress, “seriously flawed” when he signed it in August, adding that it “encroaches on the executive branch’s authority to negotiate.”
The administration missed its first deadline on October 1 to issue guidance on which Russian entities in the military and intelligence sectors should be subject to sanctions. The State Department was almost a month late on that — perhaps because Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had eliminated the office that oversees sanctions and moved all that work to the deputy director in his policy planning bureau — but they finally named names on October 26.
The administration was facing a Monday deadline for naming the businesses and enterprises from various countries that have continued to do business with those Russian entities and which will face sanctions as a result.
The Trump administration also announced new sanctions on Friday related to Russia’s occupation of Crimea and ongoing violence in eastern Ukraine, just days ahead of Monday’s congressionally mandated deadline for the implementation a separate, broad array of Russia-related sanctions.
The agency also sanctioned senior leaders of two Ukrainian separatist groups, the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic, as well as people and entities alleged to have provided them with material support.