© AP PhotoUkrainian soldiers take position on a bridge in the city of Kiev, Ukraine.
Banks including JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup suggested Washington stick with other types of sanctions to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, the people said.
Other banks with less international exposure were more receptive to the idea, telling officials that it would be a manageable step.
Opponents of the idea passed along a warning: Booting Russia from the critical global system — which handles 42 million messages a day and serves as a lifeline to some of the world's biggest financial institutions — could backfire, sending inflation higher and shielding financial transactions from scrutiny by the West.
It might also encourage the development of a Swift alternative that could eventually damage the supremacy of the US dollar.
Comment: A Swift alternative was already up and running back in 2018 for just this eventuality; Russia could clearly see the pathological nature and had enough foresight to prepare for their predictable attacks. It's also been suffering Western sanctions of one form or another for years now so it's had time to ensure that it's self-sufficient in various areas.
While refusing to rule out even the most drastic financial penalties, Biden administration officials privately concede that they aren't seriously considering the Swift option for now because doing so would choke off all trade with Russia, including energy sales that are allowed under current sanctions.
Comment: Russia supplies 55% of Germany's gas, and, without it, German industry would, basically, cease to function. In addition, energy payments are made in Euro's, meaning that the EU would lose out on the benefits that exchange provides.
Such a move could also have much wider ramifications, possibly causing an energy crisis in Europe and ruining the livelihoods of ordinary Russians, a scenario officials say they want to avoid.
Comment: The West cares nothing for 'ordinary Russians', just as it cares nothing for the life of Ukrainians whom it is using as cannon fodder for it's war on Russia; it does, however, care about causing an energy crisis in Europe, that's one of the reasons why it began begging it's 'allies', like Qatar, to ship all the LNG they had a few months ago after it leant on Germany to sabotage its own economy by blocking the Nord Stream II pipeline.
Members of Congress started calling for the US to take the almost unprecedented step of unplugging Russia from the system — something the Biden administration has said the US cannot do unilaterally — after previous measures failed to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin from carrying out the military action.
Comment: Meaning that previous measures failed to achieve the US' damnable objectives.
Also, the US is unconcerned about making unilateral moves, The US-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014, that birthed that chaos that we're seeing today is one prime example, but there are many, many more.
Swift has only blocked one nation in its history: Iran in 2012 as part of measures aimed at containing the country's nuclear programme.
The debate has split Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who have offered competing measures to sanction Russia for its aggression.
The Democratic bill, introduced by chairman Bob Menendez, authorises the president to impose sanctions on financial-messaging systems including Swift.
The Republican bill, introduced by Senator Jim Risch, includes secondary sanctions on banks but doesn't touch Swift.
In a call with reporters on Thursday, Mr Risch said the US doesn't have the authority to remove Russia from Swift on its own.
Imposing secondary sanctions on Russian banks — effectively penalising any other institution that does business with them — would achieve the intended effect and "shut down the Russian economy", the Idaho Republican said.
Comment: There will likely be unintended consequences, because countries will be forced to choose between which country provides the most benefit now and in the future. Just before Russia's special operation in Ukraine, numerous countries made rather bold shows of where they think their future lies, Pakistan and India as just two examples, and it's highly likely many more will come out of the woodwork as the ailing US hegemon continues to lash out in its death throes.
"Swift does not belong to the United States," Mr Risch said. However, "if you impose secondary sanctions, Swift is going to have to recognise those".
Mr Menendez, along with Senators Bob Casey, Chris Van Hollen and House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, has pressed the administration to remove Russia from Swift, something Mr Biden has said cannot be done without the help of European allies.
"Congress and the Biden administration must not shy away from any options — including sanctioning the Russian Central Bank, removing Russian banks from the Swift payment system, crippling Russia's key industries, sanctioning Putin personally, and taking all steps to deprive Putin and his inner circle of their assets," Mr Menendez said in a statement.
Comment: Perhaps the US was thinking of sanctioning Russia's wheat exports, what with it being the world's largest exporter? Seems like that won't work, because China just agreed to begin allowing Russian imports. And that's just one example. Because it's likely that a workaround will be found for a number of these predictable attacks by the West.
Swift representatives sought a meeting with Menendez in recent weeks as he put together his sanctions package, but he turned them down, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Republicans on the relevant committees have had conversations with the financial industry and Swift to ensure that secondary sanctions would cut off Russian banks and therefore the Russian economy, a second person said.
Daniel Fried, who was ambassador to Poland during the Bill Clinton administration, praised Mr Biden's moves on Thursday and said in a tweet that kicking Russia out of Swift was "overrated" as a deterrent.
Comment: Not according to Wall Street.
However, he said in an email exchange on Friday that while the move would be largely symbolic, "at this point, symbols count", and that he would favour removing the country from the service.
I do not pretend to know how self sufficient Russia actually is, but I do know that neither Canada nor the US is self sufficient. Not with most goods bearing a Made in China label. Hope you are all stocked, in all areas. Shoelaces to canned goods.