MIAMI _ The U.S. denied travel and froze U.S. assets on Thursday for eight judges on Venezuela's Supreme Court, as punishment for stripping the Venezuelan congress of all powers earlier this year, a decision the court later reversed amid widespread international outcry.
The sanctions are the first imposed by the Trump administration against high-ranking members of the Venezuelan government that are not related to drug trafficking. Among those targeted: Supreme Court President Maikel Moreno.
The penalties are intended to continue to isolate the embattled administration of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, which has been besieged by weeks of escalating protests following an economic collapse that has left scores of Venezuelans angry, poor and hungry.
The White House did not immediately comment.
"The United States is not going to allow those who impede democracy or violate human rights to go unpunished," Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who pushed for the sanctions, told the Miami Herald.
The court, stacked with Maduro loyalists, declared in March it would assume all legislative functions from the opposition-controlled National Assembly, which had been deemed illegitimate after being held in contempt of previous court rulings. Denounced by the opposition and international community as an undemocratic power grab, and under apparent pressure from Maduro, the court's decision was undone days later by the judges themselves.
"They call it the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, and it's packed _ literally packed _ with puppets who do (Maduro's) bidding," Rubio said on the Senate floor Wednesday.
Rubio's office worked behind the scenes with the White House and National Security Council on the sanctions, which are intended to continue to punish Venezuela's government but not its people or its economy. The United States' approach has been to back civil society and call for national elections and the release of political prisoners _ while pushing other countries in the region to do the same.
Targeted by the Treasury Department sanctions are Moreno and the seven principal members of the court's Constitutional Chamber: Juan Jose Mendoza, Arcadio de Jesus Delgado, Gladys Gutierrez, Carmen Zuleta de Merchan, Luis Fernando Damiani Bustillos, Lourdes Benicia Suarez Anderson and Calixto Ortega.
The sanctions were authorized under a March 2015 executive order signed by then-President Barack Obama, who at the time targeted seven Venezuelan government officials, citing eroded human rights protections, political persecutions and violence in response to opposition protests. Congress passed legislation seeking sanctions in December 2014, and extended them for another three years last July.
More than 40 people have died over the past six weeks as hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have taken to the streets.
Thursday afternoon, President Donald Trump hosted Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos at the White House and spoke about Venezuela, an issue they had already previously discussed by phone.
The South American country has "been unbelievably poorly run for a long period of time, and hopefully that will change," Trump said after the meeting, without mentioning sanctions. "Right now, what's happening is really a disgrace to humanity."
At Rubio's request, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence sat down in February with Lilian Tintori, the wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who has been in jail for three years. Trump has since cited that meeting when bringing up Venezuela to Western Hemisphere leaders, according to a source familiar with the conversations.
Also in February, the Treasury Department sanctioned Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami, who remains most senior government official targeted by the U.S. After a years-long investigation, the feds identified El Aissami as a cocaine-trafficking kingpin and froze assets belonging to his front man _ including several companies registered in Miami and a private plane. El Aissami called the drug accusations a "grotesque lie."
Last month, Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, asked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to enforce and, if necessary, expand sanctions against Maduro's government following the Supreme Court's move against the National Assembly. Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen also asked the U.S. to penalize Venezuelan judges over human-rights violations and political incarcerations. (Maduro labeled Rubio, Ros-Lehtinen and other U.S. lawmakers "terrorists" in 2015 and banned their entry into Venezuela.)
Earlier this month, Nelson and Rubio filed legislation to expand the type of sanctions available against Venezuela, provide humanitarian assistance and increase diplomatic pressure in the Western Hemisphere. On Wednesday, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, brought up Venezuela for the first time during a closed-door Security Council meeting.
