Via a reader tip comes news that Senator Diane Feinstein had a driver that worked for her for nearly 20 years that was a Chinese spy:
Senator Diane Feinstein
A staffer in U.S. Sen. DianneFeinstein’s San Francisco office was fired a few years back after being linked to Chinese spying in the Bay Area.
According to a Politico Magazine story on Silicon Valley espionage, the Feinstein staffer was suspected of providing political intelligence — but nothing classified — to his handlers, with one former intelligence official telling author Zach Dorfman that the suspected informant was “run” by officials based at the local Chinese Consulate.
A local source who knew about the incident confirmed to us that the FBI showed up at Feinstein’s office in Washington, D.C., about five years ago to alert the then-chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee that her driver was being investigated for possible Chinese spying.
“Dianne was mortified,” said our source, who spoke to us only on condition he not be named.
Besides driving her around when she was in California, the staffer also served as gofer in her San Francisco office and as a liaison to the Asian American community, even attending Chinese Consulate functions for the senator. [SF Chronicle]
You can read more at the link, but the US media has definitely done a good job keeping this quiet. However, it has now come out and of course President Trump has jumped on this news since Senator Feinstein is a leading Democrat involved in investigating Trump over Russian spying.
I would not be surprised if there is more to this story then what is being reported:
The U.S. government deported a Mexican woman on Friday who had lived in the country illegally for nearly two decades despite efforts by lawmakers to keep her in Florida with her husband, a Marine Corps veteran, and her two American children.
Alejandra Juarez, 38, was joined by her family and her congressman, Darren Soto, at Orlando International Airport for tearful farewells before her flight back to Mexico.
Juarez sought to illegally enter the United States in 1998 and was ordered to be removed, precluding her future chances at getting a visa or becoming a citizen, according to Soto and media interviews Juarez has given.
She illegally re-entered the country in 2000, the same year she married Temo Juarez, a Mexico native who went on to serve in the war in Iraq with the U.S. Marines and is now a naturalized U.S. citizen.
After being discovered in the country during a 2013 traffic stop, she had been required to check in every six months with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. [Reuters]
You can read the rest at the link if you want to read all the anti-Trump stuff even though her deportation process began under the Obama administration.
I feel bad for the kids, but their parents had nearly 20 years to work on her immigration status which leads me to believe there is more to this story. With that said should illegal immigrant wives of US military servicemembers receive special immigration status? That is basically the argument being made here.
A pair of Democratic senators on Wednesday introduced an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would stop President Trump from withdrawing U.S. forces from South Korea without the Pentagon’s input.
The amendment “would help prevent the President from making a rash decision about troop reductions on the Korean Peninsula that negatively impacts our national security,” Sens. Tammy Duckworth (Ill.) and Chris Murphy (Conn.) said in a joint statement.
Introduced for the Fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the provision would stop a withdraw “unless the U.S. Secretary of Defense certifies it is in our national security interest and would not significantly undermine the security of our allies in the region.” [The Hill]
I have to admit I cringed a little bit when I first saw this, but the follow on criticism has been over the top:
Newly released video footage from North Korean state media shows President Donald Trump returning a salute to a North Korean military general during this week’s summit in Singapore, an extraordinary display of respect from a US president to a top officer of a hostile regime.
In the military, returning a salute from a military officer of a friendly foreign nation is common practice for US military officers and considered a display of military professionalism. There is no rule that a US president is obliged to return a salute, which is considered a sign of mutual respect.
After Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walked down a colonnade to shake hands, the pair entered into a room filled with various members of Kim’s delegation, the video from North Korean broadcaster KCTV news shows.
Trump starts to shake hands with those in the room. Upon encountering North Korean Gen. No Kwang Chol, who was in full uniform, Trump first extends his hand, to which the general responds with a salute. Trump then salutes back, extends his hand again and the two men shake hands. [CNN]
You can read more at the link, but the salute as expected has become red meat for the usual Trump critics to sensationalize. The over the top criticism of what appeared to a reflexive action by the President is about as stupid as the over top criticism of former President Obama bowing to the Saudi King. With that said if Obama had done this his critics would be doing the same thing that Trump critics are doing now.
From what I have read there really isn’t any regulation stating that a President is supposed to salute military personnel much less foreign military personnel. Saluting apparently started with President Reagan and follow on Presidents have continued this tradition.
There’s no regulation that stipulates presidents must salute the troops. In fact, for the first 192 years of our republic, it didn’t happen. None of the first 38 commanders in chief did it. And some of those dudes had some serious military experience. Eisenhower? Grant? I mean, Teddy Roosevelt was a war hero. Surely he felt compelled to click his heels together and cut a perfect knife-handed salute when he passed a uniform service member, right? Wrong. It was literally something that Ronald Reagan made up one day. [Task and Purpose]
Interestingly I did find buried at the very end of a Dallas Morning News article criticizing Trump’s salute, that President Obama did occasionally salute foreign military personnel as well:
A cursory check of photo archives shows that Obama on occasion returned a foreign official’s salute. [Dallas Morning News]
The White House for its part is defending the salute as being part of “common courtesy“. Well the so call common courtesy is sure to be immortalized with endless amount of Internet memes highlighting this salute.
A fan of President Trump’s decision to stop joint wargames against North Korea is Guam Governor Eddie Calvo:
Guam Gov. Eddie Calvo meets with President Trump on Air Force One during a refueling stop at Andersen Air Force Base early on Wednesday morning local time.
Gov. Eddie Calvo met with President Donald Trump as the president made a pit stop at Andersen Air Force Base early Wednesday morning.
Trump was on his return trip from Singapore after a historic summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. (……)
“The war games are very expensive. We pay for a big majority of them. We fly in bombers from Guam,” Trump said after meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jung Un.
“I said — when I first started, I said, ‘Where do the bombers come from?’ ‘Guam. Nearby.’ I said, ‘Oh, great, nearby. Where’s nearby?’ ‘Six and a half hours.’ Six and a half hours — that’s a long time for these big massive planes to be flying to South Korea to practice and then drop bombs all over the place, and then go back to Guam. I know a lot about airplanes; it’s very expensive. And I didn’t like it.”
Calvo said he supports Trump’s decision to halt bomber flights from Andersen. Calvo said the exercises were “threatening,” and put Guam in North Korea’s crosshairs. [Guam PDN]
You can read more at the link, but Governor Calvo as was reported to have told Trump that the people of Guam breathed a “big sigh of relief” after the summit since the island has been repeatedly threatened over the years by North Korea for missile attacks.
It looks like President Trump is starting his own charm offensive before his summit with Kim Jong-un:
U.S. President Donald Trump praised North Korean leader Kim Jong-un Tuesday for being “very open” and “very honorable” ahead of their potential meeting in May or June.
Trump made the remark as he prepares to sit down with Kim to talk about the denuclearization of the regime.
“We are going to be having a meeting with Kim Jong-un, and that will be very soon,” Trump said at the start of talks with French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House. “We have been told directly that they would like to have the meeting as soon as possible and we think that’s a great thing for the world.”
The North Korean leader has expressed a commitment to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, and Trump has agreed to meet Kim in May or early June.
The two sides have been having “very good” discussions, Trump said. “Kim Jong-un — he really has been very open and, I think, very honorable from everything we’re seeing.” [Yonhap]
The Trump administration may be sending a message to North Korea by sending a well respected US Navy admiral to possibly be the next US ambassador to South Korea instead of Australia as previously announced:
Admiral Harry Harris
U.S. Navy Admiral Harry Harris, who was formerly nominated as ambassador to Australia, may be re-nominated as the ambassador to South Korea, according to media reports, Wednesday.
The U.S. and South Korean governments have not confirmed the nomination, but Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop noted the change, Wednesday, after being informed by U.S. Acting Secretary of State John Sullivan a day earlier, according to an AP report.
“While we would have welcomed Admiral Harris here as the ambassador to Australia, we understand that there are significant challenges for the United States on the Korean Peninsula,” she was quoted as saying.
U.S. President Donald Trump nominated Harris to be ambassador to Australia in February.
Harris, 61, reportedly planned to retire this year, but decided to take the post as ambassador to Australia based on his deep interest in bilateral relations between the countries. He is known to have less experience in dealing with South Korea. [Korea Times]
It just seems to me that someone who is a failed nuclear negotiator with North Korea partly responsible for the current mess the United States is in; probably should not be the lecturing the current Trump administration on how to handle this issue:
This file photo shows former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill. (Yonhap)
A former senior U.S. diplomat slammed the Donald Trump administration Wednesday for what he called a lack of recognition of the South Korea-U.S. alliance in the face of North Korea’s growing nuclear threat.
Christopher Hill, who served in the 2000s as Washington’s chief envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, said he would like to see a greater commitment from the administration toward the alliance.
“This is not about a series of transactions. This is about a relationship that has served us well, and served the Republic of Korea well,” he said during a forum on the North Korean threat, referring to South Korea by its official name.
If Washington can provide such reassurances to Seoul, “that gives us more scope to really go after the North Koreans,” Hill said.
Trump has often linked security cooperation with trade issues. He has pressured South Korea to address its trade surplus with the U.S. and shoulder a larger burden of the cost of stationing American troops there. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but Mr. Hill’s also wants the Trump administration to do more to get China to denuclearize North Korea.
This article from CNN sounds like another attempt to create tension between President Trump and John Kelly. It is pretty clear that there are people in the White House that do not like the order Kelly has brought and accusing him of taking shots at Ivanka Trump could be attempt to get the President to remove him:
The decision to send her to South Korea did not sit well with some senior officials in the West Wing, two people familiar with the situation told CNN. The nuclear threat from North Korea and the tensions already boiling across the Korean Peninsula made any US delegation far more than ceremonial.
Kelly was not initially enthusiastic about her South Korea trip, a person close to President Donald Trump said, largely because the visit to the Korean Peninsula was far more than a typical Olympic closing ceremony.
“This isn’t like going to Italy. The stakes are far higher and more complex,” a person close to the President said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive subject of the Trump family.
The concerns of Kelly and others about Ms. Trump — who has little experience in government or diplomacy, and hasn’t played a role in discussions about North Korea — were aired in private, according to people familiar with the matter. Kelly was advised by those closest to him that it would be a losing battle to oppose Ivanka as the delegation’s leader. [CNN]
You can read more at the link, but it wasn’t like she was leading a team to negotiate with the North Koreans. She was sent to attend the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics which is something she more than capable of doing. It seems to me that Ivanka Trump was best person to send to South Korea to off set the positive media coverage that Kim Yo-jong received during her visit to South Korea. From everything reported Ivanka Trump had a great trip and received positive publicity from the visit.
