The U.S. House of Representatives has adopted an amendment to the fiscal year 2020 defense authorization bill that includes the ban on conducting any transactions with the Russian sovereign debt.
The amendment was co-authored by Maxine Waters and Bred Sherman, C-SPAN reported.
"Russia interfered in our elections. A few individuals have been told that they can't get visas to visit the United States and never see Disneyland. This amendment provides real serious sanctions on the Russian state by saying no U.S. person can make additional purchases of Russian sovereign debt," Bred Sherman said, speaking in the House of Representatives.
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This amendment "provides a mechanism for removing these sanctions. If the Administration concludes that Russia can go one election cycle without interfering and if Congress agrees with that conclusion, then these sanctions are lifted."
"And the amendment narrowly defines interference in our elections [... ]where Russia steals information for the purpose of influencing our election or where Russian hackers use false flag communications pretending to be American when they are not," Sherman said.
"We need a serious mechanism to punish Russia for what they did in prior elections and deter them. This amendment does that," he said.
