Why is Korea so hot?
Why is our president intent on escalating threats with Korea right now?
Korea has been working on a miniaturized nuclear warhead and testing missiles for years. The U.S. is magnitudes ahead of Korea in firepower.
That’s not to say we should ignore the diminutive Korean dictator, but engaging in a shrill and shriller shouting match isn’t going to fix it.
But it might – and has – taken some attention away from Donald Trump’s other mounting problems.
Namely Russia and Trump’s nose-diving approval ratings.
He might also calculate that by seeming to be a strong threat maker, he can stoke up some of those slumping approval numbers in his base support.
Speaking of Russia
Vladimir Putin has been oddly quiet during the whole Korean opera.
He remained silent even when President Trump expressed his gratitude for Putin’s decision to order the expulsion of 755 U.S. diplomats in Russia in response to U.S. sanctions against that country for its meddling in our election.
“I want to thank him [Putin] because we’re trying to cut down our payroll, and as far as I’m concerned, I’m very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll,” Trump told reporters during a vacation impromptu news conference at his Bedminster, N.J., golf club.
If it was joke, it was a sick one. U.S. diplomats are no less patriotic and brave than U.S. military members, and Trump just disrespected their work and livelihood once again. Of course, just because they are expelled from Russia does not mean they are not still on the U.S. payroll, but certainly Trump’s comment might make them expect a pink slip. And remember, Trump is the man who said Sen. John McCain, a former Vietnam POW, isn’t a war hero because, “I like people who weren’t captured.” It would stand to reason that Trump would also like diplomats who weren’t expelled – if he liked diplomats at all. Trump’s fiscal year 2018 budget proposed cutting the State Department budget by 29 percent.
But back to Trump’s Russia love: The Trump/Russia probe moves on relentlessly.
In fact, news of the probe moves so quickly that last week’s revelations of the predawn FBI raid on Paul Manafort’s apartment is now old hat.
On Friday, ABC reported that Congressional investigators want to question Trump’s long-time personal assistant Rhona Graff as part of their ongoing probe into a controversial meeting between Trump campaign officials and a Russian lawyer promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. Vanity Fair reported that Robert Mueller also may put her under the microscope.
More promising is Mueller’s continuing interest in the tangled finances of Trump et al.
What about Devin Nunes?
While we’re on the subject of Trump and Russia, what should we make of stories from The Guardian and Politico about a mysterious visit of congressional staffers to London in July to contact former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, the compiler of an explosive dossier containing allegations of extensive secret collusion between Trump and the Kremlin?
The congressional staffers were sent by a longstanding aide to Rep. Devin Nunes, who is a close ally of the White House and chairman of the House intelligence committee that is probing Moscow’s role in the 2016 U.S. election. Nunes also is the man who had to step aside from the House committee’s Russia investigation in April (months before the London trip) after becoming the subject of an inquiry by the House ethics panel into whether he disclosed classified information in a bid to discredit the Obama administration when Trump falsely accused Obama of wiretapping him.
Nunes’ long-standing aide who reportedly dispatched the congressional staffers to London is Damon Nelson, who now serves as the House intelligence committee’s staff director.
The rub here is that the effort was unknown to the rest of the House committee probing the alleged collusion, and unknown to the FBI, and unknown to the special counsel.
Unless this was just rogue congressional staffers, that brings us back to Nunes. One would think this will give the House ethics panel a bit more to chew on.