Political Quotes

“I wanted to join in the comments made by the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee, which I currently sit on, and my distinguished colleague on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who is the author of the Magnitsky Act. I just hope--I came loaded for bear to the floor because I thought we were going to have a different result, but I am optimistically going to expect that we are going to have a resolution because, look, there are burnt bodies in the streets of Ukraine. There are mass graves to bury the dead. There are Ukrainians who are melting snow in order to drink water to survive. So it is truly mind boggling that we cannot get this legislation passed that eliminates Russia's preferred trade status and reauthorizes the Magnitsky Act. We see that Putin's actions are not only creating a horrific set of circumstances in Ukraine; they are creating a severe shortage of wheat across the Middle East and North Africa, bombing maternity hospitals and theaters housing children, causing the worst refugee crisis in Europe in decades. While we have long called out Putin's thugishness, his unprovoked and devastating attack on Ukraine has united the world in its resolve to levy severe repercussions for Putin and his cronies. So we must revoke this preferential trade status immediately. I think we should do the same for Belarus, which continues to provide a launching pad for Putin's war. But, certainly, not including Magnitsky makes no sense.…”