U.S. WARMLY WELCOMED CONGO’S DISPUTED ELECTION RESULTS — BUT HAS BEEN SANCTIONING ITS ELECTION OFFIC

IN FEBRUARY, THE Democratic Republic of the Congo’s newly elected president, Felix Tshisekedi, held a warm meeting with the U.S. envoy to the region, John Peter Pham. Only hours after the reception, the United States slapped top Congolese election, political, and judiciary officials with sanctions.

Alleging corruption on the part of the five officials, the U.S. State Department imposed visa restrictions. In late March, three of those officials who worked for the election commission were hit with another round of sanctions, this time with the Treasury Department freezing their financial assets within U.S. jurisdiction and blocking American transactions with them.

The moves were incongruent, but just one chapter of the back-and-forth saga of the U.S.’s reaction to the hotly contested and now-disputed Congolese presidential election. Just a month before the meeting and announcement of subsequent sanctions, the U.S. had welcomed the results of the allegedly rigged DRC elections.

Read more at The Intercept.