ALWAYS BET ON THE DEEP STATE:

The Trump administration was gearing up to lift sanctions on Russia when the president took office, but career diplomats ginned up pressure in Congress to block the move, two senior former State Department officials told NBC News Thursday.

It's the latest evidence that President Trump moved to turn his favorable campaign rhetoric about Russia into concrete action when he took power.

Daniel Fried, who served as a senior diplomat until he retired in late February, said he became aware of the sanctions effort in the early weeks of Trump's presidency. [...]

So Fried and another former diplomat, Tom Malinowski, who was assistant secretary of state for human rights, began lobbying Congress to pass legislation codifying the sanctions, Malinowski told NBC News. A bill has been introduced in the Senate, but it has not passed.

The Trump team backed off, Malinowski said he believes, because officials came to see that lifting the sanctions would look terrible light of the drumbeat of revelations over potential Trump campaign coordination with the Russian election interference effort.

Tweet   @brothersjudd