Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

CHINA

“The United States is deeply concerned with the increasingly harsh surveillance, harassment, and intimidation of US and other foreign journalists in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), including foreign journalists covering the devastation and loss of life caused by recent floods in Henan,” according to a written statement from Ned Price, State Department Spokesperson. The confrontational actions of the Chinese government and its harsh rhetoric toward any news it perceives to be critical of PRC policies, has provoked negative public sentiment leading to tense, in-person confrontations and harassment, including online verbal abuse and death threats of journalists simply doing their jobs, he added. The increasingly intolerant policies enacted toward foreign journalists who are increasingly refused visas to enter or remain in the PRC severely limits the quantity and quality of independent reporting. It does not bode well for the upcoming Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.

AFGHANISTAN

In response to criticism over the handling of securing the safety of Afghan interpreters who assisted the US during the war, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that at the State Department, “we’ve activated an Afghanistan Coordination Task Force that is working on this… [and] coordinating our efforts to take SIV applicants out of harm’s way and, if qualified, bring them to the United States once their vetting is complete… We put significant resources into this effort. We are talking to a number of countries about the possibility of temporarily relocating these applicants as the process is complete. It takes some time to work through the process. The first group of interpreters arrived at Fort Lee near Richmond, Virginia earlier in the week. They are expected to be shipped out around the country within the next seven days, according to a US Army spokesperson at Fort Lee.

RUSSIA

The Russian government announced that beginning in August it has decided to curb interactions with the US Embassy in Moscow by refusing to allow the US to retain or hire locally employed staff and contractors. Mission Russia for decades has engaged local individuals to assist with consular and other operations in country. The announcement means that the US Government must let 182 local employees go at diplomatic facilities in Moscow, Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg. The only locals allowed to remain are those physically guarding US facilities. “These unfortunate measures will severely impact the US mission to Russia’s operations, potentially including the safety of our personnel as well as our ability to engage in diplomacy with the Russian government,” according to Secretary of State Blinken.

IRAN

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The Secretary of State said Thursday that “we are determined that Iran not acquire a nuclear weapon.” Whether Iran comes back into compliance with the JCPOA nuclear agreement depends on Iran making the decision to do so, according to Blinken. He stated that Iran has not yet made that decision. Blinken suggested that Iran is continuing to advance its nuclear program in “very dangerous ways, and at some point those advances will be such that returning to compliance with the nuclear agreement won’t solve the problem.”

Protests that started outside of Tehran in recent days have entered the capital city. Blinken said that, at first, they were about people’s deep frustration with the failure of government to meet their basic needs, including water, mismanagement of the economy. Now, he says, “we’ve seen them move to people expressing their larger aspirations for freedom and for a government that respects them and respects their rights.” He urged the Iranian government not to use violence and repression to silence those voices.

SOMALIA

The US is providing nearly $199 million in additional humanitarian assistance for the people of Somalia who have faced decades of chronic food insecurity, violence, and cycles of drought and flooding—the impacts of which have all been compounded by desert locusts and the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the State Department. This additional funding, through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department, brings the total humanitarian assistance to more than $408 million for Fiscal Year 2021. The money is intended to assist the nearly six million Somalians in need of humanitarian aid, including three million displaced people inside Somalia as well as nearly 500,000 Somali refugees in Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. Each Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy from the State Department.

Illustration: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Judge Juan Merchan Must Recuse Himself from Hearing the Case of Donald Trump

Judge Juan Merchan Must Recuse Himself from Hearing the Case of Donald Trump By John H. Wilson In April and May of 2023, we discussed several of the weaknesses of the criminal case brought against former President Donald Trump. In particular, we described the legal insufficiency of the indictment, which does not “asserts facts supporting every element of the offense charged and the defendant`s…commission thereof with sufficient precision to clearly apprise the defendant…of the conduct which is the subject of the accusation.” We also noted that the majority of the charges brought against Trump are most likely time-barred by New York’s Statute of Limitations. https://www.usagovpolicy.com/is-trumps-indictment-beyond-the-statute-of-limitations/ In both articles, we also noted that the Judge assigned to hear the case against the former President, Juan Merchan, had previously donated small sums to several anti-Trump organizations, and was unlikely to dismiss the charges on either of these grounds. According to the New York Post, Merchan “donated $35 to Democratic causes in 2020, including $15 to President Biden’s campaign and $10 to a group dedicated to ‘resisting … Donald Trump’s radical right-wing legacy.’ Federal Election Commission records show Merchan made three small-dollar donations within the span of two days in July 2020 through ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s preferred online fundraising platform. The veteran judge contributed $15 earmarked for the ‘Biden for President’ campaign on July 26, 2020, and then the following day made $10 contributions to the Progressive Turnout Project and Stop Republicans” . Given the small amounts involved, no one seriously argued that Judge Merchan should be removed from the case after having made these contributions, even though “FEC records show that Merchan listed his occupation as ‘judge’ on the donation form, and his employer as the New York State Office of Court Administration.” This is, however, an issue of some seriousness. Under Rule 100.5(A)(1) of the Rules of the Chief Administrative Judge for the State of New York, “[n]either a sitting judge nor a candidate for public election to judicial office shall directly or indirectly engage in any political activity except (i) as otherwise authorized by this section or by law, (ii) to vote and to identify himself or herself as a member of a political party, and (iii) on behalf of measures to improve the law, the legal system or the administration of justice. Prohibited political activity shall include…(h) soliciting funds for, paying an assessment to, or making a contribution to a political organization or candidate. (Emphasis added.) This means that despite the modest sums donated by Judge Merchan, he is prohibited from making ANY contribution, in ANY amount, to the Biden campaign, or any other political organization. It’s not as if Judge Merchan wouldn’t be aware of these rules. According to CNN, “Merchan launched his legal career in 1994…as an assistant district attorney in the trial division in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office…[i]n 2006, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg…appointed Merchan to Family Court in the Bronx, and Democratic Gov. David Paterson appointed him to the New York State Court of Claims in 2009, the same year he began serving as an acting New York Supreme Court judge.” With more than 23 years of experience as a judge, Juan Merchan would certainly know he is prohibited from making contributions in any amount to political campaigns and organizations. But he did it anyway. Further, under Rule 100.3(E)(1) “[a] judge shall disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Making campaign contributions to the current President, and then hearing the case of that President’s opponent in this year’s election would certainly qualify as a reasonable question regarding Merchan’s impartiality. But this is only one basis under which Judge Merchan’s removal from the Trump case is both appropriate and necessary. There is more substantial basis for this matter to be taken away from Judge Merchan. Rule 100.3(E)(1) continues as follows; “[a] judge shall disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including but not limited to instances where… (d) the judge knows that the judge or the judge’s spouse, or a person known by the judge to be within the sixth degree of relationship to either of them, or the spouse of such a person…(iii) has an interest that could be substantially affected by the proceeding.” According to the website Living DNA, a First Degree of Relationship is a Parent to a Child, while a Sixth Degree is a second cousin. In between are Grandparents and grandchildren, great-grandparents and great-grandchildren, Aunts, Uncles, Nieces, Nephews and First Cousins. It stands to reason, then, that if Judge Merchan had a cousin, or a nephew, or a grandchild who was known to the Judge, and that person had “an interest that could be substantially affected” by a proceeding over which Judge Merchan was presiding, he would have to legally and ethically recuse himself from the handling of that matter. But what if that person is of the first degree of relationship, that is, a child of the Judge? Meet Loren Merchan, who is, according to the New York Post, “president of Authentic Campaigns, a Chicago-based progressive political consulting firm whose top clients include Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who was the lead prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment trial, and the Senate Majority PAC, a major party fundraiser…Schiff’s campaign for US Senate scored an eye-popping $20 million in aid since he began soliciting donations off the presumptive GOP presidential front-runner’s unprecedented 34-count indictment last April, according to Federal Election Commission records…The Senate Majority political action committee, which supports Democratic Senate campaigns, pocketed $73.6 million since it also began firing off fundraising emails following the ex-president’s indictment…The super PAC has done more than $15 million in business with Authentic since 2019, including email fundraising and branding assistance, while Schiff’s Senate campaign paid Authentic more than $10 million for digital advertising and other consulting services the past year, records show.” Let us understand what the New York Post has revealed here. Loren Merchan is the president of an organization that has been paid ten million dollars by the Senate Majority PAC, which has earned the money to pay Loren’s company by fundraising that is, at least, […]

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Weak Foreign Policy’s Dangers

Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL and Republican Congressional Candidate for Virginia’s 7th district, describes how the Biden administration’s weak leadership has promoted instability and conflict around the world. Another fascination conversation follows as author Jason Morgan describes the perilous situation in the Indo-Pacific. If your missed the program on your local TV station, watch it at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sIo2JVHjF6_hPQzr6CVrMegRF_7YxSnp/view?ts=66295e0a