Sometimes news bulletins are de facto confessions, and this one is no different: Trump’s attorney general Pam Bondi sent a memo to Department of Justice staff stating that previously successful enforcement of Russian sanctions would be halted.
A task force known as “KleptoCapture”—instituted by the Biden Administration after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022—would, the memo stated, be disbanded and resources would instead be “redirected to drug cartels.” From Andrew Goudsward at Reuters:
The effort, launched during Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration, was designed to strain the finances of wealthy associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin and punish those facilitating sanctions and export control violations. It was part of a broader push to freeze Russia out of global markets and enforce wide-ranging sanctions imposed on Moscow amid international condemnation of its war in Ukraine. The task force brought indictments against aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska and TV tycoon Konstantin Malofeyev for alleged sanctions busting, and seized yachts belonging to sanctioned oligarchs Suleiman Kerimov and Viktor Vekselberg.
In her missive, Bondi stated “this policy requires a fundamental change in mindset and approach” and added that resources previously earmarked for sanctions enforcement and asset seizure “will be redirected to countering cartels,” according to Reuters.
AUTHOR FOOTNOTE
I realize mainstream media is not in the business of acknowledging the absurdity of public statements, but Bondi’s reasoning is dumb, nonsensical and—this part is important—a thin fig leaf.
The Reuters story notes that KleptoCapture successfully and righteously indicted Deripaska (along with his girlfriend, btw) and Malofeyev, among others, so the “policy” needing “a new mindset” is a clumsy way to excuse the fact you are, as the story’s headline implies, opening the floodgates/removing barriers for Putin‘s morbidly wealthy associates to engage in their illicit dealings.
Bondi’s referring to KleptoCapture (a dynamic, multi-agency team apparently staffed by dozens of U.S. attorneys) as a “policy” is a reductive slur that—likely at the behest of Kremlin-asset Trump—minimizes corrective action America took against an occupying-terrorist nation.
