EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Celeste Maloy Calls For Sanctions Probe Into Ouster Of Aspiring Country’s Leader

A member of Congress is pressing the Treasury Department to investigate whether Bosnian officials engaged in sanctionable conduct surrounding the removal of former Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik, according to a letter obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Republican Utah Rep. Celeste Maloy’s Aug. 31 letter asks the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to review allegations that Schmidt and members of the Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina interfered with the democratic process in Republika Srpska, the country’s Serbian-majority entity. A senior Bosnian Serb lawmaker subsequently told the DCNF that Bosnia and Herzegovina High Representative Christian Schmidt, election officials, prosecutors and judges involved in Dodik’s removal should face U.S. sanctions.

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina convicted Dodik in February 2025 of failing to implement decisions of the High Representative after he signed legislation that Schmidt had blocked from taking effect. An appeals panel upheld the conviction in June, leaving Dodik with a one-year prison sentence and a six-year ban on serving as president of Republika Srpska, according to the Court.

“I write regarding information recently submitted to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) concerning actions taken by then-High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina Christian Schmidt and the Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CEC) to remove the democratically elected President of Republika Srpska,” Maloy wrote in the letter obtained by the DCNF.

Maloy said she understood OFAC had received materials alleging the conduct could constitute interference with a democratic process under existing Western Balkans sanctions authorities or sanctionable conduct under the Global Magnitsky program. She asked OFAC for an “expeditious review” and said she looked forward to learning the results of what she described as its investigation, according to the letter.

The State Department and Maloy were unable to provide a comment before publication.

“The time for justice is finally coming for Republika Srpska,” Radovan Kovačević, a delegate to the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, told the DCNF in a statement responding to Maloy’s request.

Kovačević accused Schmidt of improperly changing Bosnia and Herzegovina’s criminal code before Dodik was prosecuted and ultimately removed from office. Schmidt enacted amendments to the criminal code in July 2023 that created an offense for failing to implement decisions of the High Representative, according to the Office of the High Representative (OHR).

The OHR decision stated that the amendments would take effect on an interim basis until Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Parliamentary Assembly adopted them “in due form,” according to the OHR.