The shutdown of the U.S. government has reportedly halted new sanctions on Russians just before Natalia Veselnitskaya, a lawyer who met with the Trump campaign, was accused of being a Russian spy.

In a tweet on Tuesday, Bill Browder said that he had uncovered why the government had not released a list of Russians sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act in December.

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Every year in December the US State Dept and Treasury issue a new list of Russians sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act. When I checked on the delay yesterday I learned that the people making the Magnitsky designations were all restricted by the US government shutdown. — Bill Browder (@Billbrowder) January 8, 2019

Veselnitskaya met with members of the Trump campaign — including Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort — in 2016 in an attempt to have the Magnitsky Act repealed.

On Tuesday, the federal government named Veselnitskaya as a Russian agent and indicted her for obstruction of justice in an unrelated case.

Columnist Grant Stern suggested that Veselnitskaya would also be subject to sanctions under the same law she asked the Trump campaign to overturn if the government was operating normally.

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