Ending a Congress Right
Support for Ukraine Remains As Strong As Ever
The 117th Congress will soon come to an end as the Omnibus spending bill comes together. Despite the handful of fridge elements who have always been there, congressional support for Ukraine remains as strong as ever. This is expected to continue in the 118th. Although a new party will take the majority in the House of Representatives, support for Ukraine is so deeply bipartisan, so deeply and intrinsically American, that strong U.S. support is expected to continue for as long as it takes to defeat Russian and win the war.
On top of a additional funding, the final piece Congress is working to get across the finish line before it recesses for the holidays is an authority to provide recovered oligarch assets to Ukraine. This is important for two reasons: (1) it would provide potentially billions of recovered blood money to Ukraine for weapons and recovery from Russian terrorist attacks and (2) it would provide the runway for an authority next Congress to confiscate Russian sovereign reserves, which measure in the hundreds of billions. This success of this authority is critical for ensuring that Russia pays for its genocidal invasion.
A final push is also being made for the Establishing New Authorities for Business Laundering and Enabling Risks to Security (ENABLERS) Act, a bill that would finally mandate basic due diligence for U.S. financial gatekeepers. These are the lawyers, accountants, and trust and company formation agents who help China and Russia launder their money into the West. Currently, only banks must do any sort of due diligence according to U.S. law. This system of global corruption is what created the conditions for Russia’s full-scale invasion in the first place. The proposal was blocked in the national defense bill by Senator Pat Toomey. Laura Ingraham of FOX News did a segment:
We are staying busy at the Helsinki Commission as this Congress comes to a close. This week, Co-Chairman of the Commission Representative Steve Cohen, along with Ukrainian MP Oleksii Goncharenko, British MP Bob Seely, and Polish Secretary of State for European Affairs Arkadiusz Mularczyk, announced the establishment of the US-Europe Coalition on Russia Sanctions, which will seek to harmonize sanctions policy across the USA, UK, and EU:
I also discussed with my friend, journalist and author Casey Michel, the nature of foreign corruption in Washington:
Finally, the Commission held an event on saving the many Ukrainian children who have been kidnapped by Russia:
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