Trump considers turning over US diplomats to Putin

[_MeDotOrg]

From The Daily Beast:

Current and former American diplomats are expressing disgust and horror over the White House’s willingness to entertain permitting Russian officials to question a prominent former U.S. ambassador.

One serving diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was “at a f****** loss” over comments that can be expected to chill American diplomacy in hostile or authoritarian countries – a comment echoed by former State Department officials as well.

“It’s beyond disgraceful. It’s fundamentally ignorant with regard to how we conduct diplomacy or what that means. It really puts in jeopardy the professional independence of diplomats anywhere in the world, if the consequence of their actions is going to be potentially being turned over to a foreign government,” the U.S. diplomat told The Daily Beast.

During President Trump’s press conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Putin pivoted a question about extraditing the 12 Russian intelligence officers whom Robert Mueller has indicted into a quid pro quo for going after longtime betes noire currently beyond his reach.

Putin singled out Bill Browder, whose exposure of widespread Russian tax fraud led to the passage of a U.S. human rights sanctions law Putin hates. Standing next to Trump, the Russian president accused Browder of masterminding an illegal campaign contribution to Hillary Clinton and alleging vaguely that he had “solid reason to believe that some intelligence officers guided these transactions.” Should Trump permit the Russians to question people around Browder, Putin hinted, he will let Mueller’s people be “present at questioning” of the intelligence officers.
On Wednesday, Russian prosecutors escalated the stakes. The prosecutor-general’s office said it wanted to interview Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, another Putin bete noire. McFaul—the Obama-era ambassador to Moscow—replied on Twitter that the Russians know well that he wasn’t even in Russia during the relevant time frame for any case against Browder.

At the White House, however, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to rule out permitting the Russians to question McFaul. Sanders said that there had been “some conversation” in Helsinki about the issue, though Trump made no “commitment.”

So hey, we're just talking about stabbing our diplomatic corps in the back. It's not like we've done it. Just gonna talk about it a little bit....

[_Jersey Girl]

He is showing us on a daily basis that he is unfit for the position of President. The sheer abandon by which he stirs up controversy and it's resulting chaos, demonstrates that he either doesn't understand cause and effect or that he simply doesn't care.

I don't know about anyone else, but I get the sense that a snowball effect is in progress. That is to say, he's on a collision course. Let's hope he crashes before the country does.

[_Chap]

... a snowball effect is in progress. That is to say, he's on a collision course. Let's hope he crashes before the country does

So what's to stop him? His Republican voter base is solid, and the Relief Society in the Senate and the House show no real signs of being unwilling to swallow any and all of the stream-of-consciousness ordure that he blurts out on a daily basis.

It's beginning to look like the country has already crashed, in the sense that its democratic system of checks and balances have proved to be largely imaginary, once a sufficiently unscrupulous Republican leadership was paired with a President to whom ethical constraints and rational thought are mere distractions.

I'd like to be wrong about this - but can you suggest a plausible mechanism for a Trump 'crash'? (Oh, and remember that Pence is next in line ...)

[_Some Schmo]

I'd like to be wrong about this - but can you suggest a plausible mechanism for a Trump 'crash'? (Oh, and remember that Pence is next in line ...)

Pence is a much better option that Drumpf just for the simple fact that there's no real fear of him being re-elected. Nobody gives a damn about Pence. The lemmings are following the orange turd.

[_subgenius]

As a clarification, can anyone expand on how "permitting Russian officials to question a prominent former U.S. ambassador" = "stabbing our diplomatic corps in the back" ?

Understand that I am not asking about appropriateness here, but rather i am curious as to what posters may consider as the problem. I mean, according to the Democratic Party line in 2008, the cold war was well over and people who thought Russia was a boogeyman were antiques and unqualified to be President.

Nevertheless, I am unclear on what the real "threat" is on this issue.

[_Chap]

As a clarification, can anyone expand on how "permitting Russian officials to question a prominent former U.S. ambassador" = "stabbing our diplomatic corps in the back" ?

Because, for goodness' sake, the man has diplomatic immunity. A government that makes its highest level diplomats answer for their actions in office to the agents of a foreign power humiliates itself to a degree that will make it a laughing-stock worldwide, and is likely to provoke large-scale resignations from its corps of professional diplomats, who will no longer feel safe doing their jobs if any corrupt dictatorship like Russia can later demand to be allowed to interrogate them about supposed 'crimes' while in office.

Understand that I am not asking about appropriateness here, but rather i am curious as to what posters may consider as the problem. I mean, according to the Democratic Party line in 2008, the cold war was well over and people who thought Russia was a boogeyman were antiques and unqualified to be President.

Nevertheless, I am unclear on what the real "threat" is on this issue.

Yup. The old-style threat that the Soviet Union and its empire in eastern Europe posed is no more. Russia is a considerably lesser threat, though real enough. But so what? Nothing in those statements gives the US a reason to strip away the protection of diplomatic immunity from its ambassadors, prospectively or retrospectively.

Doing so would gladden the enemies of the US by making it look weak and stupid. Later on, young men might find themselves having to die when bad people decide to act on that impression, and require to be forcibly disabused.

[_EAllusion]

As a clarification, can anyone expand on how "permitting Russian officials to question a prominent former U.S. ambassador" = "stabbing our diplomatic corps in the back" ?

Understand that I am not asking about appropriateness here, but rather i am curious as to what posters may consider as the problem. I mean, according to the Democratic Party line in 2008, the cold war was well over and people who thought Russia was a boogeyman were antiques and unqualified to be President.

Nevertheless, I am unclear on what the real "threat" is on this issue.

I would've gone with, "See liberals. This proves the president isn't opposed to all intelligence investigation like you falsely claim."

[_EAllusion]

Incidentally, I'm 99% sure this was just Sanders being so unsure of what Trump would say that she deflected with a lie of "we'll look into it." The scandal is that the press secretary can't laugh off the absurd request for what it is.

[_canpakes]

Understand that I am not asking about appropriateness here, but rather i am curious as to what posters may consider as the problem.

... said the fellow walking naked out his door.

[_subgenius]

Understand that I am not asking about appropriateness here, but rather i am curious as to what posters may consider as the problem.

... said the fellow walking naked out his door.