“Trump pauses new Russia sanctions passed by Congress amid deepening row with Ukraine”, 17 October 2026 (Photo via The Guardian — the original report)
As it ran on the front
On 19 September the president signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, legislation built around sanctions the senator had pushed for years before he died in July, two months before his name became law. On 17 October, the night before they were due to, the president waived them by executive order. More than 320 drones hit Ukraine's power grid hours later.
Three days after that, ProPublica filed the beat that makes sense of the first three. The headline: "How Trump's FBI Purge Saved Lindsey Graham and James Clyburn From a Bribery Investigation." All together now, read it clause by clause. An FBI purge. Two sitting lawmakers. A bribery investigation. Saved.…
…(cont) The headline doesn't need interpretation. It needs only to sit next to the date above it.
I am an investigations columnist, not a mind reader, and I will not tell you what anyone was thinking when they did what the public record says they did. I will tell you the order. A law gets signed. A senator gets warned, on the floor, that the deal underneath it looks bad. The law gets waived. The bureau that was reported to be investigating that same senator gets purged. Each sentence stands on its own, sourced to its own date. Lined up, they stop sounding like four stories and start sounding like one.
The sanctions law was supposed to cost Russia something for the war. By the record above, it has cost Russia nothing. The bribery investigation was supposed to cost two lawmakers something for whatever the bureau was looking at. ProPublica's headline says it has cost them nothing either. Both got waived, and by the same hand.
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“They didn't investigate it away, they fired the people doing the investigating — that's not a loophole, that's a kill switch. Then the same guy turns around and shuts off the one law that still had Graham's name stapled to it, like even his own side wants him gone before anybody asks why. Two lawmakers keep their seats, Russia keeps its sanctions relief, and nobody in this story had to cast a single vote.”
“Personnel changes at the Bureau happen under every administration, you can't call ordinary turnover a purge — did I say turnover? I meant a structural realignment, totally routine. And the sanctions pause is just presidential discretion on foreign policy, the law didn't disappear, it's paused, which is completely different, and the fact that it's the senator's own law getting paused, that's — that's a coincidence, why does everyone keep bringing up his name like it proves something.”
President signed the legislation championed by late senator Lindsey Graham last month but has waived the restrictions as they were due to come into effect Donald Trump has put on hold a sweeping new sanctions package targeting the Russian economy, telling Congress the pause on the legislation passed by both chambers was in the national…
President Trump ripped into Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday telling reporters outside the White House that it's time for Ukraine to “get a new president.”
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President Trump on Saturday pushed back on criticism from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House’s decision to lift sanctions on Russian diesel amid the Russia-Ukraine war. The president told reporters outside the White House that Zelensky “could have settled this war many times,” but “chose not to.”
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US president suggests Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has not done enough to end war Donald Trump has said Ukraine needs “a new leader”, a day after making a deal with Vladimir Putin to buy large quantities of Russian diesel. The US president suggested Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not done enough to end the war with Russia and…
Hours after President Trump said the United States would buy Russian diesel, the Kremlin said there would be no immediate resumption of discussions to end the war.
Earlier this month, a Russian missile slammed into a housing complex in Pryluky, a Ukrainian city of no strategic value, far from the eastern front lines. Thirty apartments were destroyed. Twenty-two people were killed.
Senator Darline Graham, appointed to fill the Senate seat of her late brother, Lindsey, gently disagreed with the president’s decision to exempt Russia from the sanctions legislation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday said the U.S.-Russia diesel deal is a "birthday gift" to allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to "kill us, kill our children." When asked by ABC's Jonathan Karl on "This Week" about his remark that the deal helps Putin as a "gift," Zelensky explained that it "gives Putin money and...
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky decried President Trump’s late-night decision to waive sanctions and tariffs against Russia days before they were set to take effect under a new law. “At a time when the Russians have carried out such a massive attack on our energy sector, a decision was unfortunately made in America to completely…
President Donald Trump on Saturday called for new leadership in Ukraine, marking a dramatic shift in the United States’s relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump has long pushed Russia and Ukraine to make a deal ending the war between the countries, which has now stretched over four-and-a-half years and appeared to…
US president says agreement needed to lower fuel prices, but move likely to create fresh crisis with Ukraine and Nato allies Donald Trump is on a fresh collision course with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European allies after his stunning agreement to buy Russian diesel upended years of US and western pressure on the Kremlin to end its war…
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"I'll meet with Putin. I'll meet with Zelensky... And within 24 hours, that war will be settled" - Trump, CNN town hall, 10 May 2023. CNN counted 53 separate occasions he promised it. CNN fact check, 25 April 2025 (all 53 instances)
Invited to the European leaders' summit in Brussels on Friday, Volodymyr Zelensky, weakened by what he called the 'betrayal' of Donald Trump, asked his allies for an additional €70 billion in aid for the year 2027.
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"I'll meet with Putin. I'll meet with Zelensky... And within 24 hours, that war will be settled" - Trump, CNN town hall, 10 May 2023. CNN counted 53 separate occasions he promised it. CNN fact check, 25 April 2025 (all 53 instances)
Several GOP lawmakers criticized President Trump’s move to exempt Russia from the sanctions bill he signed law last month, with Sen. Thom Tillis (R- N.C.) calling the move "beyond irresponsible." Trump signed an executive order Friday evening to waive sanctions against Russia in a legislative package that was meant to put pressure on the…
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) on Saturday issued rare approval of President Donald Trump, commending the White House for lifting sanctions on Russia. The White House waived the sanctions on Friday, after the late Sen.
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"I'll meet with Putin. I'll meet with Zelensky... And within 24 hours, that war will be settled" - Trump, CNN town hall, 10 May 2023. CNN counted 53 separate occasions he promised it CNN fact check, 25 April 2025 (all 53 instances)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky bashed President Donald Trump’s deal with Russia to supply millions of tons of diesel fuel to global markets, giving arguably his most direct and biting criticism of Trump so far. Trump announced the deal on Friday in a post on Truth Social after a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin…
The Trump administration is ignoring the will of Congress and waiving new Russia sanctions amid fears that high energy prices will cost Republicans in next month’s elections.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) accused President Trump on Saturday of giving Russian President Vladimir Putin “the best birthday gift” after he waived new sanctions on Russia days before they were set to take effect. “By giving the Russian economy life support Trump’s deal with the devil keeps getting dirtier,”
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This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.
