By Nathaniel "Beltway" Steele
The House passed a Russia sanctions bill late Wednesday, sending to President Trump's desk legislation Sen. Lindsey Graham has championed for years. The bill now awaits the president's signature or veto.
[Editor's note: An earlier version of this story referred to Graham as deceased. That claim could not be confirmed against an obituary, official Senate or family statement, or wire report, and has been removed.]
Details on the measure's specific provisions — what sanctions it imposes, on whom, and under what triggers — were not laid out in the reporting available to this desk. CBS News congressional reporter Taurean Small covered the vote's passage, but this paper has not yet reviewed the underlying bill text and is not in a position to characterize its scope or reach. That reporting will follow once the text is in hand.
What is clear from the available reporting: the House vote is a legislative win for Graham, a South Carolina Republican who has spent years pushing Congress toward tougher measures on Moscow, including through the ongoing war in Ukraine. That a GOP-controlled House sent it to a Republican president's desk says something about where the center of gravity sits on Russia policy within the party, even as other Republicans have grown louder in their skepticism of American involvement in foreign conflicts.
Whether Trump signs it will be its own story. The president has at times bristled at congressional attempts to constrain his hand on foreign policy, and Russia sanctions have been a recurring flashpoint between the White House and Capitol Hill across multiple administrations. This paper will follow the bill to the president's desk and report what he does with it.
Read the footnotes. The story's always in the footnotes.
— Compiled from reporting by CBS News.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."