The State Department is dead. Without a spokesperson, it no longer gives daily briefings that have gone on since the 1950s. With gaps in the staffing up and down the line, no one could be found to even present the annual report on human rights that were previously the focus of the year.
All of which is by design, because with Rex Tillerson at the top, neither human rights nor informing the public is given the slightest concern.
With the State Department put down, Trump is handing foreign policy over to the real experts. Previous administrations may have believed we needed diplomats who understand the nuances of culture and history, so that policy could uphold both American interests and American values. Trump knows better.
Under Trump, Jared Kushner was put in charge of China policy immediately after making a $400 million deal with leading families of the Chinese Communist Party.
When it comes to Russia, not only was Michael Flynn on the phone promising to weaken sanctions, Blackwater founder Eric Prince, the brother of Betsy DeVos, worked with the UAE to set up a “back channel” to Russia, so that deals could stay safely out of public view and everyone could be reassured that Tillerson’s $500 billion deal with Putin would go through.
Flynn and Prince weren’t the only ones ready to remove some pesky sanctions and get down to business.
Five days before the resignation of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, a pair of American businessmen with ties to President Donald Trump's family attended a series of previously unreported meetings at the White House with the aim of convincing the United States to lift sanctions against Venezuela, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.
How odd was this situation?
“Those meetings never should have taken place at any level, let alone with senior officials in the West Wing."
At every turn, Trump is viewing the power and leverage of the United States as an instrument not for human rights, or the advancement of democracy, or the maintenance of peace. Whether it’s handing a bill to Angela Merkel, or scoring sweet deals for himself, every interaction comes with dollar signs attached.
Not only is Trump shaking down the world to see how much change rolls out, he’s doing so without bothering to go through anything like “standard channels.” There’s no need to make guys like Prince go through with the hassle of taking a job with the government. Not when he can get one third-party nation to broker his deal and another to host it, just by trading on Trump’s name.
The same goes for the Venezuela dealers.
Mic reviewed documents indicating the businessmen were Gentry Beach, a billionaire Dallas financier, and Wadie Habboush, an international investor. Both men have ties to Donald Trump Jr., but Beach is particularly close: He is a longtime friend of the president's son and was a major Trump campaign fundraiser.
Before Sean Spicer gives the “we never met them,” speech about this pair, a reminder that their little shindig was held at the White House. It’s hard to get more official—unless it’s the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago.
Government ethics lawyers and policymakers who served in recent Democratic and Republican administrations say meetings between White House national security officials and campaign fundraisers over foreign policy violate NSC protocol and raise serious ethical concerns.
It would raise serious ethical concerns, if there were any serious ethical concerns. Is Jefferson Beauregard Sessions going to say anything? Is Paul Ryan? Mitch McTurtle? Of course not.
The NSC and the White House declined to comment in response to a detailed inquiry about the meetings. The Venezuelan government did not respond to requests for comment made to its embassy in Washington.
America’s foreign policy is the new Trump University, only this time the tuition is a lot steeper.