Too Little, Too Late

Last May, President Joe Biden waived Trump-era sanctions against a major company building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline — as well as its CEO, Matthias Warnig, a former Stasi agent and a Putin “associate.”

Last November, as Russian troops were already massing on the Ukrainian border, Biden officials convinced congressional Democrats to drop the sanctions from the defense-spending bill. Last month, Biden sent two administration officials to Capitol Hill to lobby the Senate to kill Ted Cruz’s bill that would have reinstated the sanctions. At the time Chris Murphy, who for years peddled Russia hysterism at home,...