Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Exclusive: Obama Declines to Add Names to Russian Sanction List

Daily Beast

The administration had been preparing to beef up its list of Russian human rights violators. But at the last minute, they balked. Why?

The Obama administration has decided not to add any new names to a list of Russian human rights violators this year, an abrupt reversal that has left congressional officials and human rights advocates stunned.

For weeks, State Department officials had been signaling that they were preparing to expand a list of Russians subject to visa bans and asset freezes under a law signed by President Obama last year called the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law and Accountability Act, named after the Russian anti-corruption lawyer who died after being tortured in a Russian prison. Magnitsky was later convicted posthumously for tax evasion in a prosecution widely viewed as politically motivated.

In April, 18 Russian officials were sanctioned as a result of the Magnitsky law, which was heavily supported by lawmakers in both parties. The sanctions caused a rift in U.S.-Russian bilateral relations, and the Russian government retaliated by announcing their own visa ban list of alleged U.S. human rights violators and instituting a ban on Americans adopting Russian orphans.

Now, one year after the initial Magnitsky law went into effect, the State Department had been preparing to add between 10 and 20 new Russian names to the list—including Alexander Bastrykin, former First Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia and former Chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office—according to officials, congressional aides, and experts.

But Thursday, administration and congressional sources said that the Obama team had abandoned plans to expand the list, thereby avoiding a new confrontation with the Russian government during a sensitive time in the U.S.-Russian relationship, as the two countries work together on issues like Syria and Iran.

“We had multiple high-level assurances that there had been new names,” one Congressional aide told The Daily Beast. “Now we hear today that there’s not going to be a new list. There’s no explanation.”

A mandated report on the implementation of the Magnitsky act was due on Dec. 14 but has still not been sent to Congress. The new names were widely expected to be added to the list when the report was delivered.