Trump’s Greenlight Meets Wall of Shrugs on Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON, DC – Capitol Hill has a Russia sanctions mystery on its hands. A day after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) suggested that President Donald Trump had effectively greenlit a sweeping new sanctions package on Moscow, aides in both parties say they’re still trying to figure out exactly what he was talking about.

The confusion persisted even after the White House confirmed on Thursday that Trump had, in fact, greenlit Graham’s Russia sanctions proposal. Press officials, however, offered no further details and referred questions back to Graham’s office.

As of Thursday, there was still no shared understanding among leadership offices that a final bill exists on both sides of the aisle – let alone that it’s ready to move.

“People are acting like there’s a single, finished product,” said one senior Democratic Senate aide, who spoke to Kyiv Post anonymously. “There isn’t.”

That disconnect is now colliding with the Senate’s instinct for caution.

As Kyiv Post reported earlier, the Senate Majority Leader’s office is moving with characteristic caution, and whether any Russia sanctions legislation reaches the floor next week remains very much an open question.

For now, even allies concede the rollout has been more political theater than legislative momentum.

Too many bills, not enough clarity

At the heart of the confusion is a basic problem: there isn’t one Russia sanctions bill – there are several.

“There are multiple versions in circulation, across both chambers,” said a Republican Senate aide familiar with the talks. “Depending on who you ask, you get a different answer about what ‘the bill’ even is.”

Graham fueled that ambiguity on Wednesday when he publicly announced that Trump backed his legislation, making it seem as if the original bill, which has 85 co-sponsors, was good to go – suggesting a veto-proof, bipartisan juggernaut.

The White House’s confirmation a day later appeared to validate Graham’s claim – but without clarifying which version of the legislation the president had approved.

Behind closed doors, aides say the package has long been treated as a political hot potato.

As Kyiv Post previously reported, Senate leaders intentionally put the brakes on the effort last fall, wary of disrupting fragile diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the war in Ukraine – and of inflaming Democratic concerns about granting President Trump broad, unilateral tariff authority.

“It wasn’t just about Russia,” said one senior Democratic aide. “It was about presidential power.”

‘Evolving’ bill

One casualty of that dynamic was S.1241, the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025, introduced on April 1 with considerable fanfare – and then quietly sidelined.

“That bill had about the shelf life you’d expect from something introduced on April Fool’s Day,” one Senate aide said dryly. “It’s basically gone.”

The proposal would have given the president discretion to impose sweeping new sanctions on Russia and on countries purchasing Russian energy and strategic exports. Its most aggressive provision – a 500 percent tariff on imports from nations buying Russian oil, gas, petroleum products, or uranium – set off alarm bells among Democrats already wary of Trump’s use of tariff authority.

The bill also targeted Russian sovereign debt and expanded restrictions on financial transactions tied to sanctioned entities.

Despite Graham’s claims of overwhelming Senate support – now echoed in broad terms by the White House – leadership never brought the measure to the floor.

House retreats, Senate rewrites

The House initially followed the Senate’s lead. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) introduced a companion bill on April 1 –  H.R. 2548 – that attracted 151 co-sponsors, a rare bipartisan showing in a polarized Congress.

But by December, the House dramatically changed course. Lawmakers reintroduced the effort as the Peace Through Strength Against Russia Act, scrubbing the tariff authorities that had unnerved Democrats. The revised bill, H.R. 6856, drew a narrower but still bipartisan group of eight co-sponsors, including Reps. Gregory Meeks, Steny Hoyer, Don Bacon, and Michael Lawler.

The Senate, however, went in a different direction altogether. According to multiple aides, senators from both parties have spent months quietly revising their own text – working with the White House, outside policy experts, and foreign partners.

That process produced a Senate-only product that administration officials have privately signed off on.

“The White House is comfortable with the Senate version,” said a senior Democratic aide. adding, “They are not comfortable with the House bill. That’s an important distinction.”

Bill no one has seen

There’s just one problem: no one seems to have actually seen the final Senate draft. By Thursday night – even after the White House confirmation – at least four aides to senior senators told Kyiv Post they had not even been briefed on the latest revised text.

“We keep being told it’s imminent,” said one Republican aide. “But ‘imminent’ doesn’t mean anything if the paper doesn’t exist.”

That uncertainty isn’t new. In November, a spokesperson for Sen. Michael Bennet told Kyiv Post that Bennet’s office was still reviewing an evolving draft as Senators Graham and Richard Blumenthal continued to revise the legislation.

Months later, aides to other Senators say the process is still ongoing on their end – despite public claims that the bill is ready for prime time.

Two of those aides said they had seen what they described as a “final evolved version” of the bill, but emphasized that their Senators – among those publicly associated with the legislation – were still hesitant to signal support.

The hesitation reflects concerns about granting Trump expanded authority to act on sanctions, especially given his recent moves to bypass Congress in foreign operations such as in Venezuela.

“It’s not about whether the bill exists,” one aide said. “It’s about whether we trust giving the president more power.”

Big talk, slow clock

For now, Senate leadership appears content to keep the issue on a slow burn, balancing pressure to act against fears of undercutting diplomacy abroad and empowering the White House too much at home.

“There’s a difference between saying you’re tough on Russia and actually legislating it,” said one longtime Senate aide. “Right now, we’re still in the talking phase.”

And despite the tough rhetoric – and the White House’s confirmation that Trump has greenlit Graham’s proposal – few on Capitol Hill expect Russia sanctions to suddenly jump to the top of the Senate’s agenda.

As one senior aide put it: “In today’s Washington, if everyone says a bill is ready – that usually means it’s not.”