Senate Democrat  says ‘no doubt’ Putin involved in Navalny’s death 

Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet (Colo.) on Sunday joined the growing chorus of politicians pinning the blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin for the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in prison last week.

Bennet, who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told “Fox News Sunday” host Shannon Bream there is “no doubt Putin did this.”

“And he did it during the Munich security conference just to tell the world that he doesn’t care what anybody thinks and that he can do anything he wants to do,” he said Sunday.

Navalny died in prison last Friday at the age of 47. He was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism and had recently moved from a different prison to the highest-security level facility in Russia.

President Biden has blamed Putin for the death of Navalny, calling his death “more proof of Putin’s brutality.” 

The death of the Russian opposition leader comes as Russia’s war with Ukraine approaches its second anniversary as Putin signals growing confidence in the conflict.

U.S. support for Ukraine has become increasingly divided, with lawmakers unable to come to a majority agreement on sending more aid to the war-torn country. The Senate last week approved an emergency defense spending package that includes $60 billion in aid to Ukraine.

That bill, however, faces an uncertain future in the GOP-majority House, where House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has poured cold water over bringing the package to the floor, citing its lack of border security provisions demanded by GOP members months ago.

On Sunday, Bennet renewed his call for more aid to Ukraine.

“The most significant thing we could do right now to push back on this is to continue to fund Ukraine, to push back on the illegal invasion that Putin has led — the first incursion into a free country in Europe since the World War II order since the new order after World War II was established and that’s what we should do.”

Bream then brought up Biden’s pausing of approvals for some liquified natural gas exports and how some have argued this will empower Putin to seek elsewhere in Europe for exports they would typically get from America.

Bennet called the pause a “short-sighted decision.”

“I actually don’t support what President Biden is doing there,” Bennet said. “I think it’s been very important for American liquified natural gas to replace the natural gas that Russia was sending to Europe. I think it’s important for us to have the benefit of selling the natural gas versus other countries like Qatar in this world. And so, I believe one of the United States’s massive strategic strength is our energy, our clean energy and our fossil fuels.”