ACLU officials told lawmakers Tuesday that the legislation could violate due process protections in the U.S. Constitution because it does not allow its intentions to challenge the government’s actions in court, according to two people familiar with the matter. the term of anonymity. to describe private conversations. ACLU officials warned that the measure would likely be overturned by the judiciary if passed as proposed, giving Russia a possible propaganda victory over the United States, the people said. The United States has seized a Russian billionaire’s super yacht near Putin The legislation – backed by Tom Malinowski (DN.J.) and Joe Wilson (RS.C.) – would allow the Biden government to seize assets worth more than $ 5 million belonging to Russians targeted by sanctions from the US government. According to the bill, these assets could be sold for cash, which will then be given to Ukraine for military and humanitarian aid. The amount of these funds can amount to billions. On Tuesday night, lawmakers voted in favor of dramatically weakening the measure, turning it into a “Sense of Congress” resolution that does not create the new government. The amended measure also creates a task force that gives the Biden government 60 days to “determine the constitutional mechanisms” through which President Biden could seize assets, after which lawmakers could create a new legislative proposal. . In response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the West has imposed sanctions on some of its closest advisers. (Video: Luis Velarde / The Washington Post, Photo: The Washington Post) The ACLU’s objections to the bill fueled existing concerns among some members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, two of the people said. An accompanying bill in the Senate also faces a precarious vote, despite bipartisan support. Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. Live Russia-Ukraine updates “This bill was so unconstitutional that it raised the prospect that a sanctioned Russian citizen could win in a US court, which would probably have repealed both the statute and the sanction as unconstitutional,” said Christopher Anders. ACLU Federal Policy Director. he said in an interview. A look at Parliament’s legislation could be the first part of a much broader debate about what to do with the potentially significant amounts of Russian oligarchs’ assets expected to be seized by US and European officials in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine. . Russia’s billionaires have about as much financial wealth hidden in offshore foreign accounts as the entire population of the country has in Russia itself, according to a 2017 document released by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Biden told Russian oligarchs in the State of the Union that the United States and Europe would work to “find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets.” We are coming for your illegal profits “. But what exactly should be done with the money remained an open question. Usually, US sanctions simply freeze the assets of the person being sanctioned. It is usually required for the court to determine that a crime has been committed in order to seize these assets and then reuse or sell them to the government. Malinowski and Wilson said a speedy approach to this process was justified by the extraordinary atrocities reported in Ukraine. Their bill would give Biden new unilateral power to liquidate and sell the assets of Russian oligarchs – a power that the president usually has only when war has been declared, according to sanctions experts. The Fifth Amendment states that no person should be “deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.” Congress breaks deadlock over Ukraine, sends two bills to Biden In an interview Friday, Malinowski said the ACLU “did its job … to enforce due process safeguards and raise questions about the precedent,” adding that the organization had raised reasonable questions. Malinowski said he was open to amending the law as needed to protect the fair process, including the introduction of a new judicial mechanism, but also expressed determination not to allow the confiscated Russian assets to be returned to the country if the sanctions after the war. “There is no way we can return Russia’s wealth to Putin while Ukraine is in ruins and the Ukrainians are burying their dead. “It is not going to happen,” Malinowski said. “Well, the question is: Are we letting these assets sit somewhere for decades with uncertain disputes or are we finding a way to use at least some of them to rebuild the country that Putin is destroying?” Malinowski also said that the US authorities should not be misled by what he described as a misconception that the assets of Russian oligarchs are forms of private property. Instead, Malinowski said, the United States should see these holdings as a form of Russian state assets – as the Russian state effectively exercises power to manage and use them. “The Russian state is responsible for the destruction of Ukraine, and these are essentially Russian state assets, even if the person whose name is on the title is not Vladimir Putin,” Malinowski said. “This wealth has accumulated in a country without a fair process, which then takes advantage of the appropriate process in our country to protect it. “In this sense, we are fully complicit in the corruption of Putin’s corrupt enterprise, and we have a responsibility to help expose it.” Malinowski said the legislation would also apply to Russian central bank frozen funds held abroad. He added: “It would not be a good result if we allowed our commitment to property rights and due process to allow the return of stolen property precisely because these people destroyed property rights and due process in Russia.” China is Russia’s most powerful weapon for misinformation Treasury officials have commented to congressional officials on the measure, according to a ministry spokesman, although it has not received official approval from the administration. Sanctions experts say they are struggling to set a precedent for the bill. “The idea of trying to seize these assets and use them for some kind of recovery has a lot of appeal,” said Richard Nephew, a senior fellow at Columbia University. “The real issue is that this is a very important extension of the principle of sanctions. It’s not something we usually do. “It’s a completely noble goal, but it does not take much to extend that precedent in ways we may not feel comfortable.” Malinowski cited the US government’s decision to reject the seizure of Afghanistan’s central bank reserves as a possible precedent for the bill. He added that lawmakers also have the potential to create new principles. The ACLU’s position on the bill may not be politically popular at a time when Republicans and Democrats are calling for more punitive measures against Russia. But this is in line with the organization’s history of defending unpopular causes in the first place. The ACLU defended the freedom of speech rights of far-right commentator Milo Giannopoulos in 2017 and in 2020 defended the rights of anti-Semitic protesters in Michigan who picketed outside a synagogue. Adam M. Smith, a Gibson Dunn associate and former Obama administration sanctions official, said the bill was carefully written to achieve a kind of “karmic justice” for Ukrainians. “The bill was intentionally too narrow about which parts would be subject to foreclosure,” Smith said. “The authors were sensitive to concerns about civil liberties and tried to strike a balance.” The fate of the bill remains unclear at this time. Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at the DC-based Brookings Institution, said the constitutional challenges should be addressed through a committee modification process that provides time to resolve due process issues. “Whether it is a renewed version of this bill or another alternative, Congress must move resolutely to pass legislation that closes the gaps that will make sanctions against Russian aggression even more effective in the long run,” he said. Eisen.
