A bipartisan coalition of members of Congress is pressing President Trump to immediately consider imposing sanctions on two top Nicaraguan officials for a wide variety of alleged human-rights abuses, corruption, and illicit activity in support of President Daniel Ortega’s regime.
The group, led by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R., Fla.), sent Trump a letter Friday asking him to determine whether the two Nicaraguan officials can be sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act, the law used to blacklist several Russian officials linked to the murder of a Russian tax accountant who was instrumental in exposing corruption at the Kremlin.
Also signing on to the letter are: Sens. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Bill Nelson (D., Fla.), and Bob Menendez (D., N.J.); House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R., Calif.); and Reps. Paul Cook (R., Calif.), Eliot Engel (D., N.Y.), and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.).
The lawmakers cite the Trump administration’s decision to sanction Venezuela in July after an election giving President Maduro’s party a landslide victory in the state assembly. The vote, which was widely viewed as fraudulent, began the dismantling of that country’s democratic institutions.
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