The Defending Elections from Threats by Establishing Redlines Act, known by the acronym DETER, aims to impose sanctions, including new blocking and secondary sanctions, on foreign (primarily, Russian) governments and persons that interfere in any U.S. federal election. [1] [2]
Congress | Short title | Bill number(s) | Date introduced | Sponsor(s) | # of cosponsors | Latest status |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
115th Congress | Defending Elections from Threats by Establishing Redlines Act of 2018 | S. 2313 | January 16, 2018 | Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) | 17 | Died in Committee |
H.R. 4884 | January 25, 2018 | Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) | 25 | Died in Committee | ||
116th Congress | Defending Elections from Threats by Establishing Redlines Act of 2019 | S. 1060 | April 8, 2019 | Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) | 11 | Died in Committee |
Defending Elections from Threats by Establishing Redlines Act of 2020 | H.R. 8463 | September 30, 2020 | Brad Schneider (D-IL) | 3 | Died in Committee |
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization in the United States founded in 1983 to advance democracy worldwide, by promoting political and economic institutions, such as political groups, trade unions, free markets, and business groups.
Charles Ellis Schumer is an American politician serving as Senate Majority Leader since 2021 and the senior United States senator from New York since 1999. A member of the Democratic Party, he has led the Senate Democratic Caucus since 2017 and was Senate Minority Leader from 2017 to 2021. Schumer is in his fifth Senate term, making him the longest-serving US senator from New York, having surpassed Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jacob K. Javits in 2023. He is the dean of New York's congressional delegation.
Susan Margaret Collins is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from Maine. A member of the Republican Party, she has held her seat since 1997 and is Maine's longest-serving congresswoman.
Benjamin Louis Cardin is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Maryland, a seat he has held since 2007. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the U.S. representative for Maryland's 3rd congressional district from 1987 to 2007. Cardin served in the Maryland House of Delegates from 1967 to 1987 and as its speaker from 1979 to 1987, the youngest person to ever hold the position. In his half-century career as an elected official, he had never lost an election.
James Elroy Risch is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Idaho since 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he served as lieutenant governor of Idaho under governors Dirk Kempthorne and Butch Otter. He also served from May 2006 to January 2007 as the 31st governor of Idaho.
Russia and the United States maintain one of the most important, critical and strategic foreign relations in the world. Both nations have shared interests in nuclear safety and security, nonproliferation, counterterrorism, and space exploration. Due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, relations became very tense after the United States imposed sanctions against Russia. Russia placed the United States on a list of "unfriendly countries", along with Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, European Union members, NATO members, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Micronesia and Ukraine.
Michael Shumway Lee is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Utah, a seat he has held since 2011. He is a member of the Republican Party.
Thomas Bryant Cotton is an American politician, attorney, and former military officer serving as the junior United States senator from Arkansas since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2015.
The Magnitsky Act, formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson–Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, is a bipartisan bill passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in December 2012, intending to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009 and also to grant permanent normal trade relations status to Russia.
Marco Rubio is a Republican United States Senator from Florida. He was born on May 28, 1971, in Miami, Florida, to Cuban Immigrants who left Cuba in 1956. Rubio was a candidate for the Republican nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 election.
The propaganda of the Russian Federation promotes views, perceptions or agendas of the government. The media include state-run outlets and online technologies, and may involve using "Soviet-style 'active measures' as an element of modern Russian 'political warfare'". Notably, contemporary Russian propaganda promotes the cult of personality of Vladimir Putin and positive views of Soviet history. Russia has established a number of organizations, such as the Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia's Interests, the Russian web brigades, and others that engage in political propaganda to promote the views of the Russian government.
The Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections with the goals of sabotaging the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to the U.S. intelligence community, the operation—code named Project Lakhta—was ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The 448-page Mueller report, made public in April 2019, examined over 200 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.
The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) is a United States federal law that imposed sanctions on Iran, North Korea, and Russia. The bill was passed by the Senate on July 27, 2017, 98–2, after it passed the House 419–3. It was signed into law on August 2, 2017 by President Donald Trump, who nevertheless believed that the legislation was "seriously flawed".
The United States Intelligence Community concluded in early 2018 that the Russian government was continuing the interference it started during the 2016 elections and was attempting to influence the 2018 United States mid-term elections by generating discord through social media. Primaries for candidates of parties began in some states in March and would continue through September. The leaders of intelligence agencies have noted that Russia is spreading disinformation through fake social media accounts in order to divide American society and foster anti-Americanism.
The Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act, known by the acronym DASKA, was introduced by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Cory Gardner (R-CO), Ben Cardin (D-MD), John McCain (R-AZ), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) on August 2, 2018.
The political positions of Susan Collins are reflected by her United States Senate voting record, public speeches, and interviews. Susan Collins is a Republican senator from Maine who has served since 1997. Collins is a self-described "moderate Republican". She has occasionally been referred to as a "liberal Republican" relative to her colleagues. In 2013, the National Journal gave Collins a score of 55% conservative and 45% liberal.
Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections was a matter of concern at the highest level of national security within the United States government, in addition to the computer and social media industries. In 2020, the RAND Corporation was one of the first to release research describing Russia's playbook for interfering in U.S. elections, developed machine-learning tools to detect the interference, and tested strategies to counter Russian interference. In February and August 2020, United States Intelligence Community (USIC) experts warned members of Congress that Russia was interfering in the 2020 presidential election in then-President Donald Trump's favor. USIC analysis released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in March 2021 found that proxies of Russian intelligence promoted and laundered misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about Joe Biden "to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration." The New York Times reported in May 2021 that federal investigators in Brooklyn began a criminal investigation late in the Trump administration into possible efforts by several current and former Ukrainian officials to spread unsubstantiated allegations about corruption by Joe Biden, including whether they had used Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani as a channel.
The United States government applies sanctions against certain institutions and key members of the Chinese government and its ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), certain companies linked to the People's Liberation Army (PLA), and other affiliates that the US government has accused of aiding in human rights abuses. The US maintained embargoes against China from the inception of the People's Republic of China in 1949 until 1972. An embargo was reimposed by the US following the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. From 2020 onward, the US imposed sanctions and visa restrictions against several Chinese government officials and companies, in response to the Uyghur genocide, human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Tibet, military-civil fusion, support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and fentanyl production.
The response of the United States to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine that began in 2022 has been in favor of Ukraine. President Biden condemned the invasion, providing military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and sanctioning Russia and Belarus, the countries heavily involved in invading Ukraine.