Congress ignores White House pressure to tweak Russia sanctions bill

The House and Senate are on a path to quickly tweaking and passing a bill imposing new sanctions against Russia and Iran, possibly before they leave for the July 4 break, without any consideration of the Trump administration's call for more flexibility in how to implement those sanctions.

A technicality stalled the bill this week in the House, which led many Democrats to suspect that House Republicans were wavering on the bill in deference to President Trump, who doesn't want to get boxed in with the mandatory Russia sanctions in the bill.

But several congressional aides told the Washington Examiner that the delay has nothing to do with pleasing Trump and is only about making the technical fix.

"Everyone here is committed to getting this done as soon as we can," one House Republican aide told the Washington Examiner. "Nobody's gonna tinker with it."

The Senate last week voted 98-2 to sanction Russia for its meddling in the 2016 election and its aggression against Crimea in 2014. Democrats in particular demanded the addition of the Russia language to the Iran sanctions bill in retaliation for Russia's alleged theft of Democratic National Committee emails.