US sanctions Venezuelan officials in response to presidential election

As Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ignores calls to cede power and admit defeat in the country’s presidential election in July, the United States issued sanctions against his regime Thursday.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned 16 government officials believed to be Maduro sympathizers and complicit in the country’s election fraud by helping Maduro remain in power even though election results show he lost to opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia of the Democratic Unitary Platform.