Legal experts: The US can seize billions in Russian money to benefit Ukraine

The seizures of Russian oligarchs' super-yachts and real estate since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine have generated headlines, but a pair of legal scholars says the United States has the legal standing to deal a much more potent blow to the Russian president - and aid the people of Ukraine in the process.

In an op-ed in Friday's New York Times, constitutional law expert Laurence Tribe and Jeremy Lewin say that President Joe Biden and Congress have the proven authority to begin liquidating the almost $100 billion that the Russian central bank has tucked away in the United States as part of its foreign exchange reserves.

"These assets are already frozen at the Federal Reserve and other banks thanks to Treasury sanctions banning transactions with the Russian central bank," they write. "With new details of Russian atrocities making the prospect of lifting those sanctions increasingly untenable, those funds have, in effect, been seized indefinitely. Liquidating them now would not only be likely the fastest way to increase American aid to Ukraine without further burdening and fatiguing American taxpayers. It would also send a potent signal that the United States is committed to making even the world’s most powerful states pay for their war crimes."

They note that the United States has done so numerous times in the past. President George W. Bush seized $1.7 billion in Iraqi funds deposited in U.S. banks in 2003 and directed that the money be used as aid for the Iraqi people and as compensation for the country's victims of terrorism. Ten years ago Congress exercised a similar authority in making frozen Iranian central bank assets available to families of Iranians whose relatives had been killed in terror attacks.

This past February, the Biden administration began liquidating some $7 billion in assets of the defunct Afghan central bank, reserving half for Afghan humanitarian efforts and half to satisfy court judgments in suits filed by the relatives of those killed or wounded on 9/11.

According to the authors, "Since the reserves in question are Russian state property — unlike the assets of oligarchs — they are not shielded by the usual protections our legal system affords private property. The Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against government seizure of property 'without due process of law' applies only to 'persons' — not foreign governments.

"By deploying the powers our legal system affords, we have the tools we need to help the courageous people of Ukraine survive and defeat him (Putin). It will be poetic justice under law for us to do so by turning his own treasure against him."