Congress has revived threats to sanction Turkey over the detention of North Carolina Pastor Andrew Brunson, as well as other US citizens and Turkish staff members of US diplomatic missions that it believes are being held as “political pawns.”

Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., declared in a joint statement April 19 that they would pursue targeted sanctions against Turkish officials in the foreign affairs spending bill for fiscal year 2019. Their statement noted that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “has continued to violate the trust between our two nations by holding Pastor Brunson and other innocent Americans behind bars on fabricated charges. … Turkish officials who participate in the detainment of any innocent American citizen should face international consequences, and the actions against Pastor Brunson, in particular, qualify as hostage-taking.”

Piling on the pressure, a bipartisan group of 66 senators in a letter to Erdogan called the mix of terrorism and espionage charges brought against Brunson “an absurd collection of anonymous accusations, flights of fantasy and random character assassination.” That a Turkish court should accept such an indictment as the basis for prosecution, they wrote, “removes any shred of doubt that Andrew Brunson, like other American citizens, as well as Turkish employees of the US government detained under the state of emergency, is being used as a political pawn by elements of the Turkish government bent on destroying the longstanding partnership between two great nations.”

The letter further states that the Donald Trump administration had been patient “in the hope that justice would be done” — in other words, that Brunson would be freed after his first courtroom hearing on Monday. But the presiding judge ordered Brunson back to prison, saying his trial would resume on May 7. The 50-year-old broke down in tears as he protested his innocence.