In the midst of the longest-running government shutdown in U.S. history, so many very impactful stories that threatened the presidency of Donald Trump have been lost that it’s difficult to keep track. For instance, just prior to the shutdown, Americans learned that its current president was investigated by the FBI as a possible agent for a hostile foreign government. Additionally, we learned that Trump demanded all copies of the transcript of the meeting he held with the leader of that hostile foreign country, Vladimir Putin, be handed over to him and kept private.
New Foreign Affairs Cmte. chair Eliot Engel says he'll investigate what, exactly, Trump agreed to in his private meeting with Putin last summer.
"It's been many months since Helsinki, and we still don't know what Putin and Trump talked about." https://t.co/O8ym8ebHJY
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 12, 2019
In an interview with The New Yorker, Engel says that the agenda for the Foreign Affairs Committee under new House leadership “will be dominated, as so many other areas of our public life now are, by President Trump’s uniquely chaotic and unsettling approach to the rest of the world.” This includes that infamous Helsinki meeting between Trump and Putin. While top leaders in the committee have not yet been chosen and confirmed, Engel says that there a general consensus that this should be a primary focus.
‘No matter who holds the gavel, the investigation is certain to start with the question of what, exactly, Trump agreed to in his private meeting with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, last summer.’
Rep. Eliot Engel: "I'm worried the president is just going to let [another Russian attack] happen … I'm worried the administration is giving Russia a pass because Putin supported President Trump over Hillary Clinton." (via ABC) pic.twitter.com/xqk73G829o
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 23, 2018
In an absolutely explosive piece from the interview, Engel said that the panel within the House Foreign Affairs Committee on terrorism will be shut down and replaced by a panel investigating Trump’s ties to Putin. While that may seem extreme, Engel explained that, currently, Trump is actually the bigger threat.
‘It is telling that this is the subcommittee that Engel will now eliminate in favor of his new investigative panel. There “wasn’t a great clamor” to keep the terrorism panel, Engel told me, whereas there is no end to the Trump foreign-policy scandals that his members are pushing to investigate. “We just thought, if we’re going to do something relevant in this era where Congress is going to reassert itself, where there are so many questionable activities of this Administration vis-à-vis foreign policy, that it made sense to have this.” Trump, in other words, is a bigger threat than terrorism. At least for now.’
Another sign of Trump’s new reality: Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel to probe Trump-Putin contacts.”We will be holding hearings on the mysteries swirling around Trump’s bizarre relationship with Putin and his cronies, and how those dark dealings affect our national security”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 13, 2019
Engel believes that looking at Trump’s business interests will expose much that the committee needs to learn. So many of the questionable moves Trump has made as president in regards to foreign affairs seem to be tied to his own business interests.
‘A probe of Trump, Inc., given the President’s tendency to conflate his personal interests with the national interest, now seems indispensable to the foreign-policy concerns of the day, whether it’s explaining Trump’s otherwise hard-to-fathom pro-Russia tilt or shedding light on his family’s pursuit of business deals with Middle Eastern figures who are also key to Trump’s geopolitical priorities. It’s “incumbent upon us to look at that,” Engel said.’
BREAKING: The new chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Eliot Engel told The New Yorker He Will Start a subcommittee That Will investigate Trump's private meeting with Russian President Vladmir Putin
THIS IS JUST AWESOME
— PoliticsVideoChannel (@politvidchannel) January 11, 2019
Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license
