House Dems want Treasury records on Russian sanctions move

WASHINGTON (AP) — Three senior House Democrats are demanding Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin turn over documents that would show how his department decided to lift financial sanctions against three companies connected to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Reps. Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters and Eliot Engel say in a letter sent Tuesday to Mnuchin that they want a broad array of material, “regardless of classification,” that may include the intelligence reporting used to justify removal of the penalties.

The Treasury Department announced Sunday said it was removing Russian aluminum giant Rusal and the two other companies from its sanctions list on the grounds the businesses had reduced Derapaska’s direct and indirect shareholding stake in them.

Schiff chairs the Intelligence Committee, Waters leads the Financial Services Committee and Engel runs the Foreign Affairs Committee.