Senators Push State Dept. Nominees for Better Sanctions Oversight
Republicans and Democrats this week urged two State Department nominees to work transparently with Congress so lawmakers can perform better sanctions oversight, which they say has been a major hurdle during the last year. The Biden administration has been unhelpful in responses to some congressional sanctions queries, the lawmakers said, which has led to disagreements and confusion surrounding U.S. sanctions against Nord Stream 2 and some country-specific regimes.
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“This committee is getting what my staff calls the Heisman from the [administration's] legal department. That is, we get a stiff arm and that's about all,” said Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, speaking during a Jan. 12 nomination hearing for James O’Brien to be the U.S. coordinator for sanctions policy and Sarah Cleveland to be a State Department legal adviser. “So far in the Biden administration, State's legal opinions have been missing in action. I'm sure they exist. I hope they exist. But they are not shared with this committee.”
Risch specifically pointed to Nord Stream 2 and his multiple requests for explanations from the administration about why it hasn't imposed what he said are mandatory sanctions under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (see 2110010015). “We’re not the enemy in this committee,” Risch said during the hearing, which was before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “It's really important that we work together, particularly in some of these areas.” The White House and State Department didn’t comment.
Cleveland said that criticism from lawmakers is a “bipartisan concern” that she hopes to help correct. “I would firmly commit to making sure that your role is supported by receiving the information you need from the office of the legal adviser,” said Cleveland, who previously served as one of the agency’s legal advisers from 2009 to 2011.
O’Brien, who would be the first person to serve as the State Department’s sanctions coordinator since President Donald Trump disbanded the office in 2017, said he wants to make sure the administration works closely with Congress while sanctions are being formulated instead of only after they’re imposed. “I'll commit to that,” O’Brien said, “because I think a discussion about what our goals are early can often avoid the kind of showdown that happens when we're looking at a specific action.”
Several senators from both sides of the aisle, including Risch, Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Todd Young, R-Ind., suggested they would support O’Brien’s nomination. Menendez called O’Brien an “excellent nominee” for a “critical” position. “The last administration’s decision to leave it unfilled was, in my view, shortsighted and damaging,” he said. “Your efforts will be instrumental to ensuring that our sanctions policy is fully aligned with, and advancing, our foreign policy.”
O’Brien also touched on a range of other sanctions issues and his philosophy for leading interagency sanctions discussions. He stressed that sanctions should only be one part of a broader U.S. foreign policy strategy and should always be attached to tangible goals. “I will work with colleagues responsible for U.S. policy so that we are clear about what we intend by sanctions, we have clear goals, we understand the power structures we are trying to enforce and we are adaptable,” O’Brien said, “so that when the targets of our sanctions seek to evade them, we are able to respond.”
He also suggested U.S. sanctions against China and Russia should be more targeted to increase their effectiveness. Both countries are “in some way acting as a malign and revisionist power at the moment. I think it's important that we attack the roots of that power and not simply some of the symbols,” O’Brien said. He said he looks forward to working with the administration and Congress “to be sure that we understand what we're trying to accomplish when we do use sanctions.”
O’Brien also said he will work to better counter Iranian attempts to evade U.S sanctions. Some of that can be accomplished through the administration's recently announced anti-corruption efforts (see 2112060018), which can stop the “sort of opaque flows of money that allow for sanctions evasion,” he said. “We're now in a situation where a smaller set of states have decided to scoff at international sanctions, and we have to adapt our program to be able to stay one step ahead of them.”