If Nika Melia is not released, the U.S. will have to impose sanctions on several people

Georgia is in crisis! - says David Kramer, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, who believes the U.S. should be more involved in what's going on in Georgia.
In an interview with Mtavari Channel, Kramer says the U.S. has more influence than other countries and should be more active.
In an interview with "The Guest of the Day," Kramer also commented on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting on Georgia, saying that the Biden administration is now facing a problem because the department is not yet fully staffed, but he was confident that "more attention would be focused on Georgia soon.

I think the Congress can play an important role - be it their direct visit to Georgia or something else. Also next week, there will be a hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Georgia, which was initiated by Senator Shaheen. Considering all this, I believe that soon more attention and focus will be on Georgia .
I really appreciate Charles Michel and Christian Danielson's intentions to reach an agreement, but so far it's unfortunate that the United States has not been actively involved in this process, so now they should be involved, not to solve Georgia's problems, no - it should be up to Georgians, but because this despite my great respect for other countries, but compared to them, America has more influence in Georgia, and so we should be proactive. Georgia is in crisis! " says Kramer.

According to him, the crisis in Georgia escalated after the arrest of Nika Melia.

So far, there have been similar processes between the opposition and the Georgian Dream, but the arrest of Nika Melia has turned everything into a crisis. Added to this was the court ruling on the Pirveli TV channel, which further exacerbated the tense situation, so the most urgent step to be taken is a pullback- for which Nika Melia should be released! It is impossible to negotiate with the opposition when the main opposition leader is in prison," Kramer said.

The American diplomat does not rule out sanctions and names specific names:

The release of Melia is the first step, as I said, the leader of the opposition cannot sit in prison, and you cannot sit at the negotiating table with the opposition. And unfortunately, I have to say that if Nika Melia is not released immediately, the United States will have to impose sanctions.

Again, I'm not saying this with joy, but it has to be done to increase the pressure on the people responsible for the situation that Georgia finds itself in. And when I say sanctions, I mean several people - Mr. Ivanishvili, Mr. Gharibashvili and others! I hope it will not go that far, but as I understand it now, the attempt of our European friends to resolve the issue through negotiations was not successful. And if that is not justified, we have to use something else, so I think there are sanctions in this case, which would be a pretty tough hand.

David Kramer calls the assessments and conclusions published by various organizations about the 2020 parliamentary elections wrong:

Yes, he was indeed wrong in his assessment that Georgia had a free and fair election, especially with the conclusions both locally and internationally, as well as the final ODIHR report, we saw assessments in which mentioned progress, but also talked about problems. And there is still the question of whether the Georgian Dream has actually crossed the 40% threshold, thus forming a government so that it does not need a coalition government.
In short, it was that the Georgian Dream underlined only positive, while the opposition only negative, and the starting point is to hold elections in Georgia that are credible, "said David Kramer.