State Department spokesman Matthew Miller provided a detailed answer to Globalnews.ge's question: "In light of the announced additional sanctions, is the United States considering imposing economic sanctions against senior Georgian officials? Additionally, why has this process taken so long, and is the State Department studying additional evidence?" He stated that the Georgian Dream had the opportunity to choose the alternative path demanded by the Georgian people. Instead, it opted for a different course, leading the U.S. to enhance its mechanisms against them. Miller also noted that additional sanctions will be imposed on the Georgian government before the end of the current administration's term.

"I’ll just say – and I get this question a lot about sanctions, not just with respect to Georgia but with any number of countries with which we impose sanctions – is that people often think of sanctions as the only tool in our toolbox, and sanctions are one of the tools available to us to hold accountable countries taking decisions to which we object and decisions that we believe run contrary to not just the core values we endorse of human rights, the right to – for people to express their fundamental democratic freedoms, but values that countries all around the world endorse. 

So when it comes to Georgia, if you look at the actions that we have taken, we’ve been quite clear about the anti-democratic path that Georgia has been on recently and the democratic backsliding that we have seen take place in Georgia, and we have been clear in our response to that.  And so you have seen to date the Secretary announce a fundamental review of the relationship between the United States and Georgia, and as part of that review we have already suspended $95 million in assistance that goes to the Government of Georgia, because we have such serious concerns about the actions they have taken. We have already imposed sanctions on Georgian Dream officials for their involvement in serious human rights abuses during their violent response to peaceful protests. 

We have imposed visa restrictions on more than a hundred individuals that were either responsible for or complicit in undermining Georgian democracy, and we have suspended the U.S.-Georgia Strategic Partnership mechanism.  

So in response to the kind of question about what has taken so long, it’s not like we’ve been doing nothing all this time.  We have been taking steps to make very clear our concerns and really – this is important – to give the Government of Georgia a chance to reverse course, right?  We made clear – we didn’t move kind of from zero to hundred on day one, because we’ve always made clear with the Government of Georgia that there was an alternative path available to them, the path that we believe their people are calling for, that their people support.  And time and time again, when they face the choice, they have not pursued that path.  

And so you have seen us rachet up our response, and we will continue to rachet up our response, including additional sanctions.  And I won’t preview exactly what the nature of those sanctions will be.  But before the end of our tenure, yes, we will be imposing additional sanctions on the Government of Georgia" - Matthew Miller said.