The Biden administration issued sanctions against Russia's Federal Security Service and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in response to their continued detention of Americans.
Administration officials announced the decision on Thursday, the first time the United States government is acting on the authority provided by an executive order President Joe Biden signed last July that permits agencies to sanction those it believes are responsible for the wrongful detention of Americans.
PAUL WHELAN'S SISTER CONFRONTS RUSSIA'S LAVROV AT UN SECURITY COUNCIL
"Today, we are announcing the first set of sanctions under this executive order against actors in Russia and Iran that previously were or are currently holding hostage or wrongfully detaining Americans," a senior administration official told reporters. "These actors in Russia and Iran have tried to use Americans for political leverage or to seek concessions from the United States. These actions threaten the stability, integrity of the international political system and also threaten the safety of U.S. nationals and other persons abroad."
The official said both groups are "responsible for or complicit in, directly or indirectly engaged in or responsible for ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing wrongful detention of" Americans abroad and that the sanctions are "premised on [them] engaging in a pattern of activity of wrongful detention or hostage-taking by these entities and actors."
Four members of the IRGC were sanctioned as well.
"Today's action pursuant to last summer's Executive Order gave us a whole new set of tools for our toolkit in returning Americans who were wrongfully detained and held abroad," another senior administration official explained. "The bad actors involved here, of course, have a long pattern of many, many years of doing this to Americans. We've had this tool at our disposal since last summer, and since, we made the calculation that it's time to impose consequences."
The work behind these sanctions predates the detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested in late March on espionage charges that the U.S. government believes to be unjustified. Gershkovich, 31, was denied bail last week and ordered to remain in the capital's Lefortovo prison, where he'll be in pretrial detention until May 29.
His arrest is similar to the plight of Paul Whelan, another American the Biden administration considers to be wrongfully detained by Russian authorities. He's serving a 16-year prison sentence on espionage charges that he vehemently denies, and the U.S. government has determined to be baseless.
Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth Whelan, a fierce advocate fighting for her brother, called for his release at the United Nations earlier this week alongside U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the lead U.S. envoy at the United Nations, even with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in attendance.
“This Russian playbook is so lazy that even Evan has the same investigator, a man who harassed and interrogated my brother until Paul’s sham trial in June of 2020, when Paul was given a horrific sentence of 16 years for a crime he did not commit,” she told reporters just as the Security Council meeting began. “Now, Paul is being held in labor camp IK-17 in the remote province of Mordovia, held as a pawn and victim of Russia’s descent into lawlessness.”
Thomas-Greenfield said at the time Secretary of State Antony Blinken has "put an offer on the table, and we are pushing the Russians to accept that offer and allow Paul to get back home to his family."
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Biden negotiated two separate prisoner swaps in 2022 to secure the freedom of Trevor Reed and Brittney Griner, both of whom the administration had declared wrongfully detained. Both deals required the U.S. to give up high-value Russians convicted in the U.S.
Siamak Namazi, Emad Shargi, and Morad Tahbaz are being wrongfully detained in Iran.