Obama Authorizes Sanctions on Russia Over Its Involvement in US Elections
President Barack Obama authorized sanctions against Russian individuals and entities “determined to be responsible for tampering, altering, or causing the misappropriation of information with the purpose or effect of interfering with or undermining election processes or institutions,” the Treasury Department said (here). Obama added four individuals and five entities to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list under cyber-related designations, while Treasury in a parallel action added two individuals to the SDN list for their alleged misappropriation of funds or economic resources, trade secrets, personal identifiers or financial information for private financial gain, Treasury said (here). “The integrity and stability of our electronic systems are of utmost importance to our national security and we will hold accountable those who seek to compromise or tamper with those systems,” Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said in a statement. “Treasury will use all of its financial tools as part of the U.S. Government’s effort to counter those who engage in malicious cyber activities against our financial system or our national institutions.”
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
In a parallel action, the State Department on Dec. 29 announced the expulsion of 35 officials working at the Russian Embassy and the Russian Consulate in San Francisco who were "acting in a manner inconsistent with their diplomatic or consular status," State said (here). This was in response to alleged harassment of U.S. diplomatic personnel in Russia over the last two years, the White House said (here). "These actions are not the sum total of our response to Russia’s aggressive activities," Obama said in a statement (here). "We will continue to take a variety of actions at a time and place of our choosing, some of which will not be publicized."