Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) has singlehandedly blocked the MEGOBARI Act, a bipartisan measure that would sanction Georgian officials accused of spearheading dismantling of democracy in Georgia and the country’s pull away from the West towards Russia, China and Iran.
The move, first reported by National Review, came after Mullin persuaded Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to strip the provisions from this year’s National Defense Authorization Act.
The MEGOBARI Act — short for “Mobilizing and Enhancing Georgia’s Options for Building Accountability, Resilience, and Independence” — passed the House in May with overwhelming bipartisan support and cleared the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in March. It seeks to impose visa bans on leaders of Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party, which Washington has accused of undermining democratic institutions while deepening ties with Moscow.
Mullin’s obstruction surprised colleagues, given his past record of fierce criticism of Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili. In January 2020, Mullin warned then–Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia that Georgia was “backsliding from democratic values” and that sanctions were increasingly warranted. That July, in an op-ed for The Hill, he described Ivanishvili as a “Russian-schooled oligarch who made billions in the corrupt feeding frenzy on abandoned Russian industries after the collapse of the Soviet Union.” He also signed a bipartisan letter urging then–Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to scrutinize Ivanishvili’s political dominance.
The reversal has fueled speculation about Mullin’s motives. Washington-based journalist Alex Raufoglu, who has long covered Georgia, reported that Mullin recently told journalist Laura Kelly of the National Review he had not been in contact with Frontera Resources, a Texas oil company with a long and contentious history in Georgia, for years. Yet Federal Election Commission records reviewed by Raufoglu show that Frontera CEO Steve Nicandros donated as recently as October 2024 to PACs affiliated with Mullin.
Frontera, once locked in arbitration with the Georgian government, still owes more than 15 million GEL (just over 5 million USD) to a state-owned corporation in Tbilisi. Critics say Mullin’s decision to block sanctions — after previously championing them in the name of both democracy and American business interests — raises uncomfortable questions about whether corporate donations, rather than principle, are now driving his approach.
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