Washington – On Monday, January 29, 2018, pursuant to deadlines established in the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017 (CAATSA), the U.S. Department of the Treasury delivered a report identifying senior political figures and oligarchs in the Russian Federation.
Below is a statement that can be attributed to Tony Sayegh, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs:
“There has been widespread misreporting of requirements under CAATSA and Treasury’s response, specifically relating to the report required by Section 241 on senior political figures and oligarchs in the Russian Federation. Treasury submitted an unclassified version of this report together with classified annexes. The unclassified report was derived from open source materials which include websites, government documents, public records, and news stories among other items. The classified version was derived from classified sources and methods. Taken together, this extensive report to Congress provides thorough details as required on relevant individuals and entities. Treasury is in compliance with both the requirements and spirit of the law. CAATSA requires Treasury to submit these reports, not to sanction the individuals and entities named in them. As the Secretary indicated during his testimony, Treasury is utilizing this information to inform future targeted sanctions. We hope this clarification will lead to more responsible reporting and discussion around this important legislation.”
Below is additional background information related to this report, and Treasury sanctions programs involving Russia:
- In addition to an unclassified report naming 210 individuals based on publicly available sources, the report also included a classified analysis that describes to Congress additional information. This included links to corruption, and international business affiliations of the named Russian persons. Treasury included a classified annex in the report in order to avoid potential asset flight from the named individuals and entities, as well as to prevent disclosure of sensitive information.
- As Secretary Mnuchin noted yesterday when testifying before the Senate Banking and Finance Committee on Capitol Hill, the classified index to the report entails an “extremely thorough analysis.” While this extensive report was not a sanctions list, Secretary Mnuchin has made clear that Treasury is using this report to inform future targeted sanctions, and “there will be sanctions that come out of this.”
- While Treasury does not publicly telegraph sanctions or announce future actions to our adversaries, Treasury has made it clear that we are focused on countering Russia’s destabilizing activities.
- In 2017, Treasury imposed 58 targeted sanctions related to Russia and Ukraine. Just last week, Treasury sanctioned 42 additional individuals and entities. These targeted actions bring the total Russia and Ukraine-related sanctions to date imposed by this administration to 100 – in addition to 9 Russians targeted for malign activities related to the North Korea sanctions program, 2 under the Global Magnitsky program, and 5 pursuant to the Magnitsky Act.
####