President Trump is defending his decision to waive sanctions, which will refill Russia's pocketbooks as it attacks Ukraine.
Page A217From§Eachthe morning edition — 20 October 2026
THE WAIVER
Purge spares senator bribery probe; his namesake sanctions law waived next, Tillis calls it 'beyond irresponsible'
As it ran on the front
On 19 September the president signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, the sanctions law that carried the late senator's name two months after he died. On 17 October, the night before those sanctions were due to bind anyone, he signed an executive order waiving them.
Three days later, ProPublica's reporting on an FBI purge ran under a headline that needed no interpretation. In full, it read: "How Trump's FBI Purge Saved Lindsey Graham and James Clyburn From a Bribery Investigation." All together now — an FBI purge, two sitting lawmakers, a bribery investigation, saved. That is ProPublica's sentence, not ours; we are only reading it back clause by clause, the way the agency wrote it.…
…(cont) The waiver did not move quietly through the president's own party. That same week, Senator Thom Tillis called it "beyond irresponsible" — not the opposition's description, his own caucus's. The New York Times reported the administration was floating a separate lifeline alongside it: more Russian gas sales into Europe, the exact market the sanctions law existed to choke off.
Today the same senator went further. Tillis told reporters that Vladimir Putin is "playing President Trump like a fiddle," pointing to the president's own shift away from Ukraine as his evidence. Putin's stated reason for the invasion, Tillis said on the record, is a lie. Tillis added that "history" will not judge the president well if he abandons an ally under that pressure.
Line the dates up and the sequence writes itself. A law named for a Republican senator, signed by a Republican president, waived by that same president the night before it bound him, denounced by his own party in sharper language than the opposition used, now explained by a second Republican senator as the direct result of a foreign adversary working the president in real time. Nothing on this page invented a word of it. The document is the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act. The waiver is dated 17 October. The quotes are dated 17 October and today. Read the dates in order; they do the rest of the work themselves.
“They put a dead senator's name, Graham's, on a sanctions law so it polls good, and then the guy who signed it waives it before it ever bites — that's not policy, that's a loophole wearing a eulogy. Tillis is out there saying Putin's playing the president like a fiddle, and he's not wrong, but somebody still signed the order that keeps the gas money flowing east. You can't fund the fire department and the arsonist off the same desk and act surprised when it's your block that burns again come winter.”
“The President has broad national-security waiver authority written right into that same law — did I say 'that same law'? I mean the law critics keep calling 'his own law,' which, fine, technically it is his own law. He submitted a report to Congress laying out the national-interest rationale, that's the process working exactly as designed. Senator Tillis is a respected voice, sure, but one senator's fiddle metaphor isn't a foreign policy brief, it's a metaphor, and last I checked those don't get waived or signed.”
Earlier in this story
- Trump's purge spares Graham a bribery probe; weeks later, Trump spares Russia his own sanctions law. By Mitch · the morning edition, 20 October 2026
- Pentagon withholds NATO-paid Patriots with no explanation; a congressman vows to be 'fully accountable' By The Wrecking Crew · the morning edition, 20 October 2026
- Trump administration denies any pause in intelligence sharing with Ukraine for the second time in six days. By Lou · the evening edition, 19 October 2026
- Rubio tells Zelensky to end the war Putin is settling with Trump and Xi without him. By Lou · the afternoon edition, 19 October 2026
- Treasury insists Russia got no sanctions relief, just a waiver pausing the sanctions. By Lou · the evening edition, 19 October 2026
- Trump waives his own Russia sanctions the night before they take effect, and hours later more than 320 drones hit Ukraine's grid. By The Wrecking Crew · the evening edition, 18 October 2026
The receipts
President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order that waived new sanctions on Russia that were set to take effect thanks to bipartisan legislation signed into law by the president last month. Trump justified the decision by claiming the sanctions waiver "is in the national interests of the United States," without offering…
President Donald Trump’s greatest delusion is that he is a superior president to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson. Perhaps Trump’s second-greatest delusion is that Russian President Vladimir Putin respects him. Putin has repeatedly proven his disdain for the president, most recently with an assassination plot in…
Trump said he'd settle the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours of meeting Putin and Zelensky — CNN counted 53 such promises. CNN fact check, 25 April 2025 (all 53 instances)
GOP lawmakers bash Trump's decision to waive Russia sanctions: 'Beyond irresponsible'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…
"I'll meet with Putin. I'll meet with Zelensky... And within 24 hours, that war will be settled" - Trump, 10 May 2023 CNN fact check, 25 April 2025 (all 53 instances)
Tillis: 'Putin is playing President Trump like a fiddle'Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said Russian President Vladimir Putin is playing President Trump “like a fiddle” by shifting U.S.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that waived the sweeping Russian sanctions and tariffs enacted by the bill championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham. Trump signed the Lindsey O.
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.