The bill is designed to send a message that key Republicans remain committed to punishing Russia for its belligerent behavior. McCain, Graham to unveil bipartisan Russia sanctions bill It could ratchet up tensions between Russia hawks on Capitol Hill and Donald Trump.

Two of Donald Trump’s fiercest GOP critics on Tuesday will release a bipartisan bill to increase sanctions on Russia over its meddling in November’s presidential election.

Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina are set to unveil the measure at an afternoon press conference with Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the bill’s chief sponsor, and seven other co-sponsors, including Republicans Marco Rubio of Florida, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Rob Portman of Ohio.


The bill is designed to send a message that key Republicans remain committed to punishing Russia for its belligerent behavior, despite the president-elect’s desire to improve relations with the Kremlin and his downplaying of Russia’s involvement in the election.

The sanctions bill, dubbed the “Countering Russian Hostilities Act of 2017,” follows Friday’s release of a declassified version of a report by the intelligence community on Russia’s meddling in the election. The report says Russian intelligence was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee as part of a larger influence campaign designed, at first, to undermine faith in U.S. democratic processes and then to help elect Trump.

The new sanctions would impose visa bans and freeze the assets of "those who undermine the cybersecurity of public or private infrastructure and democratic institutions," according to a summary of the legislation. It would also impose sanctions on transactions with the Russian defense and intelligence sectors, potentially making it harder for banks to do business with the Russian military and spy agencies.

In addition, the measure would codify Obama-era sanctions on Russia, imposed in response to the country’s election meddling and its 2014 annexation of Crimea. The measure would prohibit any action that implies recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea.

And it would authorize $100 million for the State Department and other U.S. agencies to fight Russian propaganda, including by supporting programs to counter “fake news,” among other provisions.

The bill could continue ratcheting up tensions between Republican defense hawks in Congress and Trump, who often praises Vladimir Putin and has picked an oil executive who lobbied against Russia sanctions to be his secretary of state.

McCain said last week he was hopeful the sanctions bill would attract widespread support from his Republican colleagues and would ultimately get a vote on the Senate floor.

But even if the measure were to become law, there is little Congress could do to force the Trump administration to implement the new sanctions if it doesn’t want to, as Cardin acknowledged in an interview. Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, explained that the measure would likely include what’s called a “national security waiver,” a provision typically included in sanctions bills that allows the president to waive the sanctions if doing so is in the interests of the United States.

“There's separation of branches of government that you have to respect,” Cardin said. “We are not the enforcing arm. We set the policy, but the president has the responsibility to carry out the laws that we've passed. There's ways that we can provide for accountability, but we don't impose sanctions. It's done by the administration.”