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Trump Just Fueled Putin's War Machine: The Diesel Deal That Broke the Law · Uncensored Objection

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Here is the question nobody in Washington wants to answer.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Three weeks ago, the President signed a law locking Russia sanctions into federal law.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then on Friday, he let Putin sell diesel to America anyway.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: No notice to Congress, no certification, no vote.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Just a phone call and a permission slip.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Today we are breaking down exactly what happened,
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: why it is illegal, and the one phone call you need to make before October 18th.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, Jim,
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: walk me through the timeline first because the speed of this thing is what makes it
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: so shocking.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Friday afternoon.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Trump announces he wrapped up what he called a highly successful discussion with Vladimir Putin.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Within hours,
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: the Treasury Department cleared the way for Russian diesel to flow
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: into world markets, including the United States, until April 7, 2027.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: That is six months,
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: the longest diesel break Russia has gotten since it invaded Ukraine in February
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: of 2022.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: And how much diesel are we talking about?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Trump laid out the numbers himself.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: 300,000 tons right away.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: 500,000 more in November.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: 1 million after that.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And 3 million more depending on the shape of Russia's damaged refineries.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: That adds up to 4.8 million tons of fuel from a country still waging war on its neighbor.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: But wait, can Russia even deliver that much?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: I thought their refineries were in bad shape.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: That is the thing.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Experts doubt the numbers.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Former American officials say nobody knows whether Putin even has that much diesel to sell.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the backstory that makes this even wilder.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Russia is normally the second biggest diesel exporter on the planet,
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: but Ukrainian drones kept hammering its refineries.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So Russia shut down its own diesel exports back in July and kept the ban running
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: through October.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: So Russia was desperate to sell diesel again.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Desperate.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: On September 25,
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: the Kremlin spokesman told the world
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: that Russian diesel would hit global markets again only
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: after countries dropped their sanctions.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Fourteen days later, Washington gave him exactly what he asked for.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Putin asked, Trump delivered.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Let me make sure I am hearing the stakes correctly.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Every gallon of that diesel sold sends money back to Moscow?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Every gallon.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the same money buying the missiles and drones raining down
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: on Ukrainian apartment buildings.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: A former top American diplomat warned about exactly that on Friday.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: President Zelensky said gifts to Putin bring no peace and
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: that Russia will repay this diesel with further terror and perfidy.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: He called Friday's move an obvious weakness.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he is right.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Senator Adam Schiff put it pretty bluntly too.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: He said we went from sanctioning Russian oil to buying it in three weeks.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: In three weeks.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now here's where we go from bad policy to broken law.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the part Mitch Jackson really wants everyone to understand.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Congress built clear rules for this exact moment.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Back in 2022,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Congress passed a law banning Russian energy imports,
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: and that law spells out exactly one exit.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: The president must give lawmakers 45 days of notice,
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: then certify in writing that Russia has agreed to pull its troops out.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Then Congress gets a vote to reject it.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: So three requirements, notice, certification, vote.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Did any of that happen?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: None of it.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Zero.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: None of that happened.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so now give me the legal framework,
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: because this is where Mitch's 40 years of trial experience really matters.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Why is this such a big deal constitutionally?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the deal.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: When President acts against what Congress has clearly written into law,
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: his power sits at its weakest point.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: That is not my opinion.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: That is the Supreme Court, 1952,
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: when it stopped President Truman from seizing the nation's steel mills during
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: the Korean War.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: A Treasury permission slip is paperwork.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And paperwork never outranks a law passed by Congress.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: The permission slip here is called General License 135.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And get this, it sets no price limit of any kind.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: No price cap at all?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: So Russia can charge whatever the market will bear?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it wants.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now layer two more locks on top.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: On September 18th, Trump signed the Lindsey Graham sanctions law.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: The Senate passed at 86 to 11.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: The House, 262 to 159.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: It locked every Russia sanction since the invasion into federal law.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And anyone reading it will see that before loosening those sanctions,
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: the President must first hand Congress a written finding and an explanation of why.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: He also has about 30 days, ending around October 18th, to impose most of the new penalties.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: And Senator Blumenthal,
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: who co-wrote that law, called Friday's deal a stain on our nation's character.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: He did.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And there is one more lock.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: A 2017 law requires the President to notify Congress before issuing any license
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: that significantly changes America's Russia policy,
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: then wait up to 60 days while lawmakers decide.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: This license took effect instantly.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Six months of open diesel trade with Russia,
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: announced right after a phone call with Putin,
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: changes our Russia policy in a way any honest reader recognizes.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Congress deserves to see the paperwork.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I know some people online are calling this treason,
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Mitch addresses that head-on, and I think his honesty here is important.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: It is, and here is why you can trust this analysis.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Mitch says straight up,
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Trump's decision is bad national and global policy, but it is not treason.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: The Constitution defines treason as waging war against America
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: or helping its enemies,
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: and the Supreme Court has long insisted on reading that clause narrowly.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: An enemy means a nation in open war with the United States.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Russia does not qualify.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: He does not oversell the case.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: He tells you exactly what the law actually says.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: That is what cross-examining the powerful looks like.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: You do not inflate.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: You nail them on what you can prove.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: So what about impeachment?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Where does that stand?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Different standard entirely.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Alexander Hamilton described impeachable offenses as abuses of the public trust,
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: and the House of Representatives decides
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: whether ignoring Congress's sanctions laws crosses that line.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: That is a political judgment for the House to make.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Not a criminal one for the courts.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we have laid out the problem and the law.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Give everyone the playbook.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: What do we actually do?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: One move.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it matters more than you think.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Call your representative and both of your senators today.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: The number is 202-224-3121.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Ask them one question.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Did the administration file the written certifications these laws require
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: before it opened the door to Putin's diesel?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And demand answers before October 18th?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because that is when the clock runs out on the new penalties.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: That is it?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: One phone call?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: That is the move.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Congress built these safeguards on purpose.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: The people you elected owe you the courage to enforce them.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: 141 nations condemned Russia's invasion back in March of 2022.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Europe and Britain still keep their diesel sanctions fully in force.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: America just blinked.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the only people who can unblink it are the ones you put in office.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: And if you got value from this episode,
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: join trial lawyer Mitch Jackson and the rest of
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: on his Uncensored Objection Substack,
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: where Mitch applies 40 years of legal experience to cross-examine the powerful
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: and show you what the law actually says, behind the breaking political headlines.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Visit and subscribe at uncensoredobjection.com.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: That is uncensoredobjection.com.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: We will see you next time.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Make the call.