UNCjigga
Lifer
Newly released Taylor deposition transcripts shed new light on the shadow foreign policy at work in Ukraine that allowed Trump to circumvent official channels/State Dept in order to withhold military aid for promised investigations of the Bidens.
But do we really believe that Ukraine is the first time Trump tried to use backchannel diplomacy to circumvent official US policy for personal favors?? It seems that a hollowed-out State Department (and putting political activists into key ambassadorships) was just a feature all along, and not a bug.
Over his first 3 years in office, I can think of a handful of countries that Trump surrogates visited and met with officials without an official State Dept delegation present: Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, China and Israel. Some of these saw cabinet members take a senior role in foreign policy, others saw Trump cronies in Congress visit at odd times (hello July Fourth Russia trip) and others saw Trump’s inner circle of lawyers, family and friends/business associates visit on the Administration’s behalf.
I’m curious if anyone has done follow-up reporting on these trips to find out what was discussed/agreed to?
But do we really believe that Ukraine is the first time Trump tried to use backchannel diplomacy to circumvent official US policy for personal favors?? It seems that a hollowed-out State Department (and putting political activists into key ambassadorships) was just a feature all along, and not a bug.
Over his first 3 years in office, I can think of a handful of countries that Trump surrogates visited and met with officials without an official State Dept delegation present: Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, China and Israel. Some of these saw cabinet members take a senior role in foreign policy, others saw Trump cronies in Congress visit at odd times (hello July Fourth Russia trip) and others saw Trump’s inner circle of lawyers, family and friends/business associates visit on the Administration’s behalf.
I’m curious if anyone has done follow-up reporting on these trips to find out what was discussed/agreed to?
