Foreign Policy

Niger is Donald Trump’s ‘Benghazi’ scandal

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When four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed at the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012, Republicans moved quickly to politicize their deaths and to pin blame on President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney accused the Obama administration only hours  after the incident in Benghazi of sympathizing with the attackers.

Republicans also accused National Security Advisor Susan Rice of misleading the public by saying on CBS’ Face the Nation and ABC’s This Week that the attack was a direct result of a “heinous and offensive video,” and was spontaneous, not a preplanned terrorist attack.

Congressional Republicans subsequently conducted seven congressional committee investigations and issued nine reports into the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi. The final probe lasted more than two years and cost more than $7 million, as GOP lawmakers hoped to find misconduct by Obama, or more significantly Secretary Clinton. Those inquiries came up empty, but served Republican’s desired purpose of smearing Obama, Clinton and Rice within the epistemic closure of the conservative media entertainment complex feedback loop.

The Benghazi conspiracy theory, in a nutshell, was that: (1) the Obama administration prematurely claimed victory against al Qaida terrorist groups in Libya; (2) there was an intelligence failure that left U.S. diplomatic personnel vulnerable, and (4) the U.S. military was not in position to conduct a rescue operation.  (5) Republicans, of course, politicized the incident accusing the Obama administration of lying about what happened and what went wrong.

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First emoluments clause case gets a hearing in court

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Our Twitter-troll-in-chief successfully manufactured a grand distraction of the media this past week by engaging in outrageus behavior with his “Gold Star family” scandal to stop them from reporting on subjects he does not want them to cover.

A subject the media failed to cover this past week while distracted by bright shiny objects was the first court hearing in one of the first emoluments clause cases filed against Donald Trump for his profiting off of his position as president.

Dahlia Lithwick reports, Would $1 Million in Hot Dogs Violate the Emoluments Clause?

In a federal courthouse in Manhattan on Wednesday morning, lawyers for the Department of Justice tried to persuade Federal District Judge George B. Daniels to toss the civil lawsuit accusing the president of violating the Constitution by accepting foreign money while in office. Perhaps the high point of the morning came when a Trump lawyer conceded that if the president were to accept $1 million in hot dogs purchased from an imaginary Trump hot dog business as a gift to sign a foreign treaty, he would probably run afoul of the most obscure constitutional provision you’ve never heard of. Metaphor, meet the president of the United States.

You may recall that back in November everyone was casting about trying to find a name for the phenomenon wherein a presidential candidate who promises to release his tax returns if elected and declines to do so, then promises to divest himself of his foreign business interests from which he would profit as president and fails to do so, and then stands next to a tower of empty folders and tells us ethics rules don’t apply to the White House and he doesn’t care if you’re mad about that. You may also recall that this was around the time the word emoluments became something other than that stuff you use to keep your skin smooth and supple.

The Foreign Emoluments Clause can be found in Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution, and it bars anyone holding an “office” from accepting presents or emoluments from “any King, Prince or Foreign State” without “the consent of Congress.” (The Constitution actually has three separate emoluments clauses, but only the foreign and domestic clauses came up in oral arguments on Wednesday.) In the simplest possible terms, the Emoluments Clause prohibits government officials from accepting gifts or payments from foreign governments. Here’s the sticky bit: We don’t have a lot of doctrine in this area because it’s never been litigated, chiefly because most presidents haven’t wanted to look like they were cashing in on the office with club fees, Chinese trademarks, and jacked-up hotel drink prices. But this president doesn’t care about any of that.

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(Update) The madness of King Donald – a ‘containment policy’ will not work

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Last Thursday, President Trump told Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and his top generals in a White House meeting that he wanted military options for North Korea at a “much faster pace.” Mattis urges military ‘to be ready’ with options on North Korea.

On Thursday evening, Trump with a group of military families and made a cryptic comment that this was “the calm before the storm.” What Did President Trump Mean by ‘Calm Before the Storm’?

President Trump was clearly looking to make some kind of news, but about what, exactly, was not clear.

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Mr. Trump summoned reporters who were still at work to the State Dining Room, where he was throwing a dinner for military commanders and their spouses.

Gesturing to his guests, he said, “You guys know what this represents? Maybe it’s the calm before the storm.”

“What’s the storm?” asked one reporter.

“Could be the calm before the storm,” Mr. Trump repeated, stretching out the phrase, a sly smile playing across his face.

“From Iran?” ventured another reporter. “On ISIS? On what?”

“What storm, Mr. President?” asked a third journalist, a hint of impatience creeping into her voice.

When pressed to explain what he meant, Trump said: “You’ll find out.”

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The madness of King Donald

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Last week we learned that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is in direct contact with North Korea in an effort to prevent the U.S. from stumbling into a renewed Korean war and possible nuclear conflict. Tillerson: U.S. is in direct contact with North Korea, is ‘probing’ talks:

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States is in direct contact with North Korea and is looking into whether Kim Jong Un is open to talks.

The comment, made during a brief trip to China, was the first time the Trump administration acknowledged direct communication with Pyongyang.

“We are probing, so stay tuned,” he said.

“We ask, ‘Would you like to talk?’ We have lines of communications to Pyongyang. We’re not in a dark situation, a blackout. We have a couple, three, channels open to Pyongyang; we can talk to them; we do talk to them,” he said.

After publication of this Washington Post report, our always insecure egomaniacal Twitter-troll-in-chief took to the Twitter machine to undercut his Secretary of State. Trump tells Tillerson to quit “wasting his time” on North Korea:

The president’s latest tweets, a day after Secretary of State Tillerson confirmed the U.S. is in contact with North Korea.

Screen Shot 2017-10-05 at 2.03.40 PM

This is a pretty cavalier way to announce a foreign policy move with potentially massive implications.

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How to stumble into a nuclear war in North Korea

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Senior aides to President Trump repeatedly warned him not to deliver a personal attack on North Korea’s leader at the United Nations last week, saying insulting the young despot could irreparably escalate tensions and shut off any chance for negotiations to defuse the nuclear crisis. Aides warned Trump not to attack North Korea’s leader personally before his fiery U.N. address. But did our inexperienced infantile man-child listen? Nooo.

Trump’s derisive description of Kim Jong Un as “Rocket Man” on “a suicide mission” and his threat to “totally destroy” North Korea were not in a speech draft that several senior officials reviewed and vetted on Monday, the day before Trump gave his first address to the U.N. General Assembly, two U.S. officials said.

Some of Trump’s top aides, including national security advisor H.R. McMaster, had argued for months against making the attacks on North Korea’s leader personal, warning it could backfire.

But Trump, who relishes belittling his rivals and enemies with crude nicknames, felt compelled to make a dramatic splash in the global forum.

Some advisors now worry that the escalating war of words has pushed the impasse with North Korea into a new and dangerous phase that threatens to derail the months-long effort to squeeze Pyongyang’s economy through sanctions to force Kim to the negotiating table.

A detailed CIA psychological profile of Kim, who is in his early 30s and took power in late 2011, assesses that Kim has a massive ego and reacts harshly and sometimes lethally to insults and perceived slights.

This same profile applies with equal accuracy to Donald Trump.

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