The sanctions were passed with a veto-proof majority because of Russian election interference in 2016. They followed sanctions passed in 2012 for human rights violations, called the Magnitsky Act.
The companies in question, aluminium giant US Rusal, En+ Group, and JSC EuroSibEnergo were partly owned by Oleg Deripaska, an ally to Russian President Putin. Deripaska has also been linked to Russian interference in US elections.
Trump specifically named Obama as being among those that didn’t reach out to the families of fallen soldiers, saying, “If you look at President Obama, and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls, a lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate, when I think I am able to do it.” When this was shown to be untrue, Trump backtracked by saying, “President Obama I think probably did sometimes, and maybe sometimes he didn’t. I don’t know. That’s what I was told. Other presidents did not call. They’d write letters. And some presidents didn’t do anything.”
Army Sergeant La David Johnson was killed during an ambush in Niger by elements of ISIS. The event was the largest loss of American lives in Africa during combat since the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993.
Sgt. La David Johnson / Associated Press
La David’s pregnant widow said that Trump forgot her husband’s name during a phone call he’d made to offer condolences. Trump also remarked about her husband that, “He knew what he signed up for, but it hurts anyways.”
When the widow’s account of the phone call was reported, Trump said she was wrong because he has “one of the greatest memories of all time.”
He also tweeted that he had said the name “without hesitation.”
I had a very respectful conversation with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, and spoke his name from beginning, without hesitation!
He went on to say that if he had the book that he already acknowledged he had, he wouldn’t read it, and that it was given to him by a Jewish friend who wasn’t in fact Jewish.
