Jerry Moran breaks with GOP on sanctions vote after last year’s trip to Russia

Sens. Jerry Moran and Josh Hawley were among a small group of Republicans to break from their party and support an unsuccessful effort to stop President Donald Trump’s administration from relaxing sanctions on three Russian companies.

The measure fell three votes short Wednesday of the 60 votes needed to advance to a final vote in Senate after only 11 Republicans voted for it, including Hawley, R-Missouri, and Moran, R-Kansas.

“I will not support the lifting of sanctions until President Putin and Russia changes its hostile behavior,” Moran said in a statement. “There is no indication that Russian policy has changed, so now is not the time to lift sanctions.”

Moran faced backlash this past summer for participating in a Republican-only congressional trip to Russia during the July 4 holiday. Foreign policy experts criticized the eight lawmakers on the trip as naïve after Russian leaders used the trip for propaganda purposes.

However, Moran’s office said that he has had a consistently tough message on U.S.-Russia relations and the need to hold Putin’s regime accountable.

“Sen. Moran made very clear to his Russian counterparts that he would not support lifting sanctions until Russia changes its hostile behavior,” Moran’s spokeswoman Morgan Said said in an email when asked about Moran’s July 4 trip.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, had crafted the resolution to halt the U.S. Department of Treasury from lifting sanctions against companies linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, an ally of Putin.

The agency can move forward with that plan after the 57-42 vote.

Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, and Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, both sided with the majority of Republicans in opposing the measure.

Hawley railed against the FBI during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday for reports that the agency began scrutinizing President Donald Trump after the Republican Party softened its stance on Russia, but in explaining his vote in support of Schumer’s measure the freshman Republican struck a hard line on the issue.

“Oleg Deripaska is a bad guy who still appears to be working in conjunction with Vladimir Putin. Until we know for certain that Deripaska no longer has control over these entities, we need to maintain the pressure,” Hawley said.

This story was originally published January 16, 2019 at 7:57 PM.