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Ever since he sullenly departed from the White House in January 2021, a portion of Donald Trump’s supporters have maintained that he is actually still in charge of the “real” government and running the military while President Joe Biden is left with a fake government and a ”bad military.” That view may be deep into the land of deplorable delusions, but in a way, Trump really has been running his own government.
That “shadow government” has been making promises and deals with authoritarian leaders, attempting to overturn democratic elections, and making moves that seem connected to lucrative real estate deals. That includes Trump holding a pseudo state dinner with Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán, using a shadow veto to crush a border security bill, and even dispatching former diplomat and intelligence official Richard Grenell to negotiate with governments around the world.
Trump has described Grenell as “my envoy,” and his work includes not just attempting to overthrow the government of Guatemala but also returning to the Balkans to talk to the successors of a democratic American-allied government that he helped destroy while Trump was in office. And of course, there’s money involved.
The Washington Post reports on Thursday that when Bernardo Arévalo won the 2023 presidential election in Guatemala on a pro-democracy, anti-corruption platform, the Biden administration moved quickly to acknowledge the victory and to help the new president shore up his incoming government against threats from right-wing election deniers.
But Grenell took the opposite approach. Trump’s shadow ambassador showed up in Guatemala days before Arévalo was due to be sworn in and immediately met with right-wing authoritarians trying to reverse the results of the election. He then met with a group trying to block the inauguration, supported an effort to throw out election results, and criticized the U.S. State Department for sanctioning those who tried to block the peaceful transfer of power.
Thankfully, though Guatemala's highest court granted right-wing parties a temporary injunction that prevented certification of the election results in the first round of voting, and continued tensions in Guatemala City caused a delay in the eventual inauguration ceremony, Arévalo was sworn into office just one day late.
Grenell may have failed in his efforts to end democracy in Guatemala, but he had more success in Kosovo when he visited as a diplomat for Trump in 2020. As NPR reported at the time, Kosovo had long had the support of the United States in its conflict with Serbia, while Serbia had connections with Russia, but Grenell arrived with demands that seemed to match those of Serbia.
Former diplomat Molly Montgomery told NPR that Grenell put “extraordinary pressure” on the Kosovo government. Trump and Grenell appeared to have “given up the United States' traditional role as Kosovo's main champion,” she said. The result was that Kosovo's Parliament voted to remove Prime Minister Albin Kurti, who, like Arévalo in Guatemala, had run on a platform of fighting corruption and democratic reform. According to NPR reporter Joanna Kakissis, Kurti called his removal “a parliamentary coup d'état supported by Grenell.”
In Kurti’s place, a new prime minister promised a deal with Serbia. However, following Trump’s departure from Washington, Kurti—who continued to express his support for America—was elected a second time as prime minister in February 2021.
But if Kurti is back, so is Grenell.
In November 2021, shortly after visiting Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Grenell headed for Kosovo and Serbia, according to the Post. He has reportedly used his visits to undermine the Biden administration’s diplomatic efforts in the region and damage the prospects for a new peace deal between the two sparring nations. Grenell appears particularly tight with Serbian officials, who regard him as a “friend,” one source told the Post. That includes partying with Serbian officials tightly aligned with the Kremlin.
Grenell’s visit was followed by an amazingly generous real estate deal featuring Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. As The New York Times reports, the deal would give Kushner “a 99-year lease, at no charge, and the right to build a luxury hotel and apartment complex and a museum” on a site in central Belgrade.
Grenell’s work didn’t stop there. He was also on hand in Turkey when that nation’s vote was the only barrier to Sweden’s entry into NATO. According to The Washington Post:
Amid those tense negotiations, Grenell, a fierce critic of NATO and the Biden administration’s foreign policies, made a startling offer: a meeting between Trump and [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, who was coming to New York City for the United Nations General Assembly, according to the two people close to the former president.
Grenell’s actions in Kosovo in 2020, however contemptible, enjoy the protection of his role as a U.S. official. His subsequent trips to that region, his meddling in Guatemala, and his attempts to sway Turkish officials do not.
In 2021, there were questions about whether Grenell’s actions were a violation of the Logan Act, which forbids private citizens from dealing with foreign governments “in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States.” But there are no mentions of the act in more recent coverage from The Washington Post or The New York Times.
Maybe, like the Hatch Act, this is just one of those laws now seen as optional if you’re a Trump supporter.
President Joe Biden’s approval ratings have been improving since his fiery State of the Union speech—as we predicted. At the same time, the Republican Party cannot stop the infighting, even as Donald Trump’s takeover seems to be complete. Markos and Kerry get into Biden’s improving fundamentals as the race to save America heats up.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
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Photo by Jonathan Ernst/REUTERS
Last year House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer acknowledged former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House advisor Jared Kushner had “crossed the line” when he accepted $2 billion in foreign investment funds from the government of Saudi Arabia as he started up a private investment firm just months after leaving the White House.
Now, Rep. Comer (R-KY) says he will not open an investigation into any possible wrongdoing, Huffpost reports, despite top Democrats alleging Kushner engaged in “apparent influence peddling and quid pro quo deals.”
On Tuesday, the top Democrat on Comer’s Oversight Committee, ranking member Jamie Raskin, and Democrat Robert Garcia (D-CA), the ranking member on the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, formally requested Comer “convene a hearing regarding Jared Kushner’s apparent influence peddling and quid pro quo deals involving investments in exchange for official actions and to examine the resulting threats to our national security.”
“This Committee cannot claim to be ‘investigating foreign nationals’ attempts to target and coerce high-ranking U.S. officials’ family members by providing money or other benefits in exchange for certain actions while continuing to ignore these matters,” Raskin and Garcia wrote. “We therefore urge you to work with us to finally investigate Mr. Kushner’s receipt of billions of dollars from foreign governments in deals that appear to be quid pro quos for actions he undertook as senior White House adviser in Donald Trump’s Administration.”
The American people are deeply concerned about these business dealings and Mr. Kushner’s apparent influence peddling. We must address
those concerns with a fair, impartial, and public process to understand the truth and to institute meaningful reforms to safeguard public confidence in our executive branch.”
The two Democrats in their letter say their “request comes in light of allegations that Jared Kushner is pursuing new foreign business deals, just as Donald Trump becomes the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency. Last year, well before these new allegations came to light, Chairman Comer had already conceded that Jared Kushner’s conduct ‘crossed the line of ethics’ and promised that the Oversight Committee would ‘have some questions for Trump and some of his family members, including Jared Kushner.'”
Raskin and Garcia paint a picture of “Kushner’s pattern of profiting off of his time in the White House.”
Citing The New York Times (apparently this article), they write, “Jared Kushner was closing in on investments in Albania and Serbia, leveraging relationships he built during his time as a senior adviser in his father-in-law’s White House. Reportedly, Mr. Kushner is considering an investment on the site of the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense.”
“Mr. Kushner is reportedly being advised by Richard Grenell, another former senior Trump Administration official who served as U.S. Ambassador to Germany and, concomitantly, as ‘special envoy for peace negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo.’ Mr. Grenell reportedly ‘pushed a related plan’ for redevelopment of the same site during his time in the Trump Administration.”
“In pursuing investment opportunities in Albania, Mr. Grenell and Mr. Kushner have been openly leveraging their relationship with Edi Rama, the Prime Minister of Albania. While Commander-in-Chief, President Trump received unconstitutional payments from Prime Minister Rama and other senior Albanian government officials who spent thousands of dollars at theTrump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., over three separate stays,” Raskin and Garcia write.
They also allege, “Mr. Kushner successfully overruled State Department officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, to make President Trump’s first foreign trip as President to Saudi Arabia. Mr. Kushner personally intervened to inflate the value of a U.S.-Saudi arms deal and to finalize the deal President Trump signed, which was worth $110 billion. Mr. Kushner
also provided diplomatic cover and support to the Crown Prince after the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, an American permanent resident and journalist. Mr. Khashoggi’s murder was assessed by American Intelligence to have been approved by the Crown Prince himself.”
Despite their extensive allegations, Comer is refusing to open an investigation.
“Unlike the Bidens, Jared Kushner has a legitimate business and has a career as a business executive that predates Donald Trump’s political career,” Comer said, as HuffPost reports. “Democrats’ latest letter is part of their playbook to shield President Biden from oversight.”
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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