Washington, DC – While President Biden awarded Vladmir Putin a summit this week with no pre-conditions or accountability for the Kremlin’s malign actions – including his failure to implement the mandatory second round of sanctions related to Alexei Navalny’s poisoning – House Foreign Affairs Committee Lead Republican Michael McCaul highlighted the administration’s missteps on Russia. 

Lead Republican McCaul joined Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week” ahead of the summit to lay out expectations and the need for substantive action to hold Putin accountable. 

On Monday, Lead Republican McCaul was on Fox News’s “America Reports” with John Roberts and Sandra Smith to discuss how to hold Putin accountable for the cyberattacks emanating from Russia on U.S. critical infrastructure and federal agencies. 

Lead Republican McCaul joined Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino on Wednesday to call out Biden’s “pipeline paradox” in allowing Putin’s malign Nord Stream 2 pipeline to be completed while stopping the Keystone pipeline and not robustly responding to the Russian cyberattack on the U.S. Colonial pipeline.

Ahead of the summit, Lead Republican McCaul outlined various areas where the administration’s strong rhetoric condemning Putin’s aggression and destabilizing activity has not been backed up by equally strong action. 

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Putin continues to hold U.S. Marines, Trevor Reed and Paul Whelan, hostage as political pawns. While President Biden pushed for their release, it should have been a pre-condition to the summit. 

Following the summit, Lead Republican McCaul and Senate Foreign Relations Ranking Member U.S. Senator Jim Risch sent a letter to President Biden expressing concern that the Administration has so far failed to impose the second round of legally-mandated sanctions to hold the Putin regime accountable for the poisoning of leading Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny. 

“Along with waiving critical sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and your Administration’s muted response to Russia’s role in a series of recent significant cyberattacks on the United States, this delay, in contravention of U.S. law, serves as yet another unreciprocated concession that projects weakness,” the lawmakers wrote. “Further, Russia has deliberately and repeatedly broken the international norm against the use of chemical weapons, has violated its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and is actively working to erode the work of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons from the inside,” the lawmakers continued. “In failing to impose these mandatory sanctions, your Administration is forfeiting the best opportunity to stand against Russia’s violations, and to protect the norm against using chemical weapons.”

Lead Republican Michael McCaul and Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI) wrote an op-ed in CNN urging President Biden to make ransomware attacks emanating from Russia a priority item on his agenda with Putin.

On Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria” , Lead Republican Michael McCaul discussed how Putin was given the world stage with the summit and major concessions, while the United States received nothing in return. The two discussed how Putin has been testing President Biden, and the president is failing the test. 

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