The Senate Just Passed a Sweeping Russia Sanctions Bill. Its Author Didn’t Live to See the Vote.
- 86-11 the final Senate vote passing H.R. 5334, the vehicle for the “Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026” — Senate Press Gallery, Aug. 7, 2026
- 100% the maximum tariff the bill authorizes President Trump to impose on the top importers of Russian oil, gas, and sanctions-evasion facilitators — S.1241 bill text, Congress.gov
- 11 senators who voted no — only one of them a Republican — Senate Press Gallery, Aug. 7, 2026
- 71 the age at which the bill's architect, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), died in July 2026, one day after finalizing the sanctions deal with the White House — NBC News, Aug. 7, 2026
- 15% the natural-gas-import threshold below which a country can be exempted from the bill's tariffs, if it is also taking steps to cut Russian imports further — S.1241 bill text, Congress.gov
On Friday, August 7, the Senate passed a sweeping sanctions package against Russia and Iran by a vote of 86-11, using H.R. 5334 as the legislative vehicle. The bill carries a name written into the record only after its principal author was gone: the “Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026.”
It began, sixteen months earlier, as the bipartisan “Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025” — introduced April 1, 2025 by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), with a House companion led by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA). Graham did not live to cast a vote on it.
What the Senate actually passed had also been quietly softened on the way to the floor. An early draft carried a 500% minimum tariff on countries buying Russian energy; a July 28 procedural draft cut that to 200%; the version that passed caps the tariff authority at 100%, aimed squarely at the two countries that buy the most discounted Russian crude — China and India.
The August 7 tally was the second time the bill cleared 60 votes. On July 28-29, the Senate voted 86-12 on a procedural motion to advance it — a vote held days after Graham’s funeral, and after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed more than sixty senators privately at the Capitol, pressing the case in person for why the sanctions mattered. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) moved the bill from that procedural vote to final passage over the following ten days.
Zelenskyy’s message to the Capitol was blunt: sanctions, not statements, were what would move Moscow. “Real, strong American pressure and sanctions against Russia are what will help the most” to end “this insane Russian war against our independence and our people,” he said. On the floor, Thune framed the stakes in similarly stark terms, calling Ukraine “the largest conflict, literally, since World War II in Europe” and arguing that as long as Vladimir Putin keeps collecting Russian oil-and-gas revenue, “he’s able to continue this war.”
Lindsey Graham died on July 11-12, 2026, at age 71, of an aortic dissection — hours after returning from a trip to Ukraine, and one day after he had finalized the sanctions deal’s terms with the White House. He had spent more than a year as the bill’s chief salesman, working the tariff language back and forth with the administration until he had something the president would sign. He did not get to watch it pass.
President Trump called him “one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known.” South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R-SC), acting on Trump’s recommendation, appointed Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone (R-SC), to finish out his term. She did not inherit a ceremonial seat. Nordone worked directly with Blumenthal — her brother’s Democratic co-author — to carry the bill from the procedural vote held days after his funeral to final passage ten days later. A bill two senators from opposite parties built together over sixteen months became, in the end, something a grieving family finished on the Senate floor.
The Senate’s decision to attach Graham’s name to the bill was not routine. Legislation rarely carries a living sponsor’s name, let alone a deceased one’s, inside its first year. That it does here reflects how central Graham had become to actually getting Russia sanctions past a White House that, for most of 2025, was reluctant to move.
Mechanically, the bill mandates sanctions on Putin himself, senior Russian officials, oligarchs, state-owned enterprises, and banks that support Russia’s defense industrial base. It also targets Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” — the maritime networks of aging, opaquely owned tankers Moscow has used to keep exporting oil around Western embargoes.
But the bill’s real weapon is the tariff authority, not the sanctions list. It lets the president impose tariffs of up to 100% on the top five importers of Russian crude oil, the top five importers of Russian natural gas, and the top five countries facilitating sanctions evasion — a structure written explicitly with China and India in mind, the world’s largest buyers of discounted Russian crude. Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE) has also named Brazil as a target. A carve-out exempts countries that import under 15% of their natural gas from Russia while taking “significant steps” to reduce that further, which shields most of Europe. The bill also extends existing sanctions on Iran’s petroleum sector, folding two adversaries into one package.
Critically, the tariffs are not automatic. The bill gives Trump a presidential waiver: he can suspend sanctions or tariffs on any country by certifying to Congress that doing so serves the U.S. “national interest.” That is a real, discretionary check written into the statute — not a rubber stamp requirement, and not a guarantee the tariffs on Beijing or New Delhi ever actually take effect. Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, argued the leverage itself is the point: “This could finally bring Russia to the negotiating table.” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) put it more bluntly, saying the bill “sends Vladimir Putin an unambiguous and bipartisan message.”
The opposition split in an unusual direction: it was not about sanctioning Russia, but about who pays for the tariffs that come with it. The lone Republican no vote was Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). He was joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and nine Democrats: Sens. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Peter Welch (D-VT), and Ron Wyden (D-OR). A Paul-Wyden amendment to strip the third-country tariff provisions out of the bill entirely failed 32-64 before final passage.
“This is a tariff bill that seems to have been written with such blind rage that, rather than compel a change in Vladimir Putin's behavior, its punitive measures would make American families poorer and undermine our national interests.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Fox News op-ed
Paul warned the tariff exposure could run as high as $500,000,000,000 on U.S. consumers — his own estimate, not an official CBO or Treasury score of this specific bill. His objection — shared by the nine Democrats who joined him — centered on the same mechanism that gives the bill its teeth: tariffs on countries that keep buying Russian energy raise costs somewhere, and that somewhere includes American importers and consumers, not just Moscow.
By a vote of 86-11, the Senate passed H.R. 5334, the legislative vehicle for the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026. (60-vote threshold). Senators voting no: Blunt Rochester, Hassan, Hirono, Markey, Ossoff, Padilla, Paul, Sanders, Warren, Welch, and Wyden.
11 Senators voted No on the Russia & Iran sanctions bill: Paul (R), Sanders (I), and 9 Democrats: Blunt Rochester, Hassan, Hirono, Markey, Ossoff, Padilla, Warren, Welch, and Wyden.
The bill now moves to a House that is on recess until September 2026. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has signaled willingness to “process” it once members return, though Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) and Don Beyer (D-VA) have already flagged concerns about how much tariff authority the bill hands the executive branch. Trump has signaled through White House officials that he would sign the bill if the House sends it to his desk, and Blumenthal has said publicly that he expects him to.
The Senate passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act 86-11 on August 7, sixteen months after Graham and Blumenthal introduced it and less than a month after Graham died finalizing its terms with the White House. His sister, Darline Graham Nordone (R-SC), helped carry it the rest of the way. The bill’s real mechanism is a tariff of up to 100% aimed at China and India, the two biggest buyers of discounted Russian crude — softened from an original 500% draft, and subject to a presidential waiver Trump can invoke whenever he certifies it serves the national interest. Eleven senators voted no, ten of them over the tariffs’ cost to American consumers, not over sanctioning Russia itself. It now waits on a House that won’t return until September.
