On February 24, 2022, in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics and Deputy NEC Director Daleep Singh briefed with Press Secretary Jen Psaki. The American Presidency Project hosts the official transcript, 5:35 P.M. EST. After describing financial sanctions on Sberbank and VTB and export restrictions, he said the package had been “intentionally scoped” to deliver “severe impact on the Russian economy while minimizing the cost to the U.S., as well as our Allies and partners.” Then, in his own words: “To be clear: Our sanctions are not designed to cause any disruption to the current flow of energy from Russia to the world. We’ve carved out energy payments on a time-bound basis to allow for an orderly transition of these flows away from sanctioned institutions, and we’ve provided other licenses to provide for an orderly winddown of business.”
Asked whether targeting the Russian energy industry was “totally off the table,” he answered: “What I’m saying is that our measures were not designed to disrupt in any way the current flow of energy from Russia to the world.” He added that cutting off “cutting-edge technology” was intended to degrade “Russia’s long-term productive capacity,” “but nothing — nothing in the short term, as it relates to energy.” On energy’s weight he said: “This is the one area — this is the one area where Russia has systemic importance in the global economy,” naming Russia as the second-largest natural-gas and crude-oil producer, and: “we’re not going to do anything which causes an unintended disruption to the flow of energy, as the global economic recovery is still underway.” On SWIFT and sanctioning Vladimir Putin personally, he said the administration follows design principles — impact, avoiding the perception of targeting average Russian civilians and “unwanted spillovers,” coordination, flexibility, sustainability — and that “all options are on the table.”
Fox News, the same day, reported the “not designed to disrupt” lines and the social-media criticism. The Daily Caller, February 25, 2022, reported the same quote and linked the White House briefing page. RealClearPolitics posted a video clip under the headline that the sanctions were “not designed to disrupt in any way the current flow of energy from Russia to the world.” Those pieces are reporting. The Fact sentences rest on the official transcript. Washington Examiner later wrote that he had been “the public face” of the Russia sanctions strategy and had briefed “on the record three times in February alone.” That is the Examiner’s characterization, labeled as reporting.