Threat Management, Threat Intelligence

Trump may roll back Russian sanctions, return compounds closed by Obama

Just a few days after President Donald Trump's chief economic adviser Gary Cohn said the U.S. is “not lowering our sanctions on Russia,” the president is considering returning that country's diplomatic properties in Maryland and New York closed by the Obama administration in response to Russia's attempts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.

The White House is mulling taking away diplomatic immunity on the properties if the properties are returned, according to a report in the Washington Post. Negotiations to give back the properties have previously been tied to Russia abandoning a freeze on the building of a U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg, but now that contingency has been dropped, the Post reported Secretary of State Rex Tillerson as telling Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

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