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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The State Department on Tuesday said the United States respects the right to freedom of speech and assembly of individuals when asked about American factions of the movement for a Sikh separatist state that has long frustrated India.
The Indian government has complained about the presence of Sikh separatist groups outside India, especially in Canada. The groups have kept alive the movement for Khalistan, or the demand for an independent Sikh state to be carved out of India.
One such group called Sikhs for Justice is based in the United States and has been organizing an unofficial so-called “Khalistan Referendum”.
“So we’re not going to comment on the unofficial referendum,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said.
“What I will just say is that, broadly across the board, individuals have the right to freedoms of speech, rights to peacefully assemble in the United States, all of which are in line with our First Amendment protections, and adherence, of course, to any appropriate federal and local regulations.”
The demand for an independent Sikh state surfaced most prominently in India during a violent insurgency in the 1980s and 1990s and paralyzed the state of Punjab. Tens of thousands died.
The movement is considered a security threat by India. Sikh militants were blamed for the 1985 bombing of an Air India Boeing 747 flying from Canada to India in which all 329 people on board were killed.
Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984 by two Sikh bodyguards after she allowed the storming of the holiest Sikh temple, aimed at flushing out separatists.
The cause hardly has any support in India presently and was crushed within the country by the government in the 1990s.
Canada last month alleged that India may have been involved in the killing of Canadian citizen and Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, whom New Delhi labeled as a “terrorist”. India denies any involvement in his killing.
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Sam Bankman-Fried‘s father and brother, as well as Donald Trump’s former spokesman Anthony Scaramucci, are among possible witnesses at the cryptocurrency exchange founder’s fraud trial, according to a list read by a prosecutor in court on Tuesday.
There is no guarantee that Scaramucci, Bankman-Fried’s father Joseph Bankman or his brother Gabriel Bankman-Fried will testify during the trial, which is expected to last six weeks and kicked off on Tuesday with jury selection.
Prosecutor Danielle Sassoon read the list of dozens of names – which included both proposed prosecution and defense witnesses – to see if any prospective jurors knew them.
Scaramucci’s alternative investment firm SkyBridge Capital once owned a stake in FTX, his cryptocurrency exchange which declared bankruptcy in November 2022 amid a flurry of customer withdrawals.
Federal prosecutors say Bankman-Fried embezzled from FTX customers since its founding in 2019 until its bankruptcy in order to prop up his hedge fund Alameda Research, buy luxury properties and donate more than $100 million to U.S. political candidates.
At the outset of proceedings, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan told the 31-year-old former billionaire in open court that it would ultimately be his decision whether to testify in his own defense, and asked Bankman-Fried whether he understood.
“Yes,” Bankman-Fried replied. He was dressed in a suit and striped tie, with his once signature curly, unkempt hair cut into a neater trim.
He stood and smiled for the prospective jurors after Kaplan asked him to rise so they could see if they knew him personally.
During several hours of questioning, Kaplan excused 28 jurors who said they could not serve on the case, many due to professional or personal obligations. He said jury selection would likely finish by the end of the day, paving the way for opening statements on Wednesday.
One prospective juror said the company they worked for, Insight Partners, lost money from investments in FTX and Alameda but believed they could decide the case “on the basis of the facts.” The juror was not dismissed, though further questioning was expected in the afternoon.
Insight Partners, a venture capital firm focused on technology, invested in FTX in 2019, according to private market data provider PitchBook. The company said it was not an investor in Alameda. The now-bankrupt fund is fully owned by Bankman-Fried and former FTX executive Gary Wang, court filings show.
Earlier, prosecutor Nicolas Roos said the two sides never engaged in talks about a potential plea deal and no such offer was made to Bankman-Fried.
Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. He has acknowledged inadequate risk management, but denied stealing funds. His lawyers have signaled in court papers they plan to argue that FTX’s treatment of customer funds was proper, and that others at FTX and Alameda bore the bulk of the blame for their failure.
The trial will also feature testimony from three former members of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle who have pleaded guilty to fraud charges themselves and agreed to cooperate with the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office.
Bankman-Fried’s lawyers have signaled they plan to challenge the credibility of those witnesses – who include former Alameda chief Caroline Ellison and former FTX executives Gary Wang and Nishad Singh – by arguing they are motivated to implicate their client to get a lower sentence, a common strategy in white collar fraud cases.
They have also laid the groundwork to argue that Bankman-Fried believed his exchange was allowed to invest customers’ deposits as long as they were ultimately able to take out their funds, and that a series of business failures – not deliberate fraud – left the exchange without enough money to meet withdrawal requests.
Bankman-Fried has been detained since Aug. 11, after the judge found he had likely engaged in witness tampering – including by sharing Ellison’s personal writings with a reporter. Ellison and Bankman-Fried are former romantic partners.
He will be brought to court early on most days to allow him to prepare with his lawyers.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) -Donald Trump sat hunched over the defense table as testimony resumed on Tuesday at his civil fraud trial, with New York state’s attorney general aiming to prove that the former U.S. president inflated his wealth by lying about his real estate empire.
The trial, now in its second day, could lead to the dismantling of Trump’s business empire as he seeks to regain the presidency in 2024.
Attorney General Letitia James has accused Trump, his two adult sons and others of inflating asset values over a decade to secure favorable bank loans and insurance terms, and exaggerating Trump’s own riches by more than $2 billion.
Before testimony resumed, Trump renewed his attacks on James, telling reporters outside the courtroom that she was “grossly incompetent” and had concocted a bogus case.
“Her numbers are fraudulent,” said Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to face Democratic President Joe Biden in the 2024 election. “She’s a fraud.”
James entered the courthouse without speaking to reporters.
The trial’s second day began with the government’s first witness Donald Bender, Trump’s former accountant at Mazars USA, resuming his testimony. James is trying to show that Trump and his company deceived even his own accountants.
Under questioning from Kevin Wallace, a lawyer in the attorney general’s office, Bender said financial statements he prepared for the Trump Organization were largely based on self-reported figures.
Trump wore his familiar blue suit, red tie and American flag pin. He appeared bored as Bender testified, and spoke frequently with his own lawyers.
James is seeking at least $250 million in fines, a permanent ban against Trump and his sons Donald Jr. and Eric from running businesses in New York, and a five-year commercial real estate ban against Trump and the Trump Organization.
The trial judge, Arthur Engoron, has already ruled that Trump committed fraud, and canceled business certificates for companies that control crown jewels of Trump’s portfolio, including Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street in downtown Manhattan.
Trump has denied wrongdoing and his lawyers have said they will appeal.
During the first day of trial, Wallace accused Trump of “lying year after year” in financial statements he provided to banks and insurers from 2011 to 2021.
Trump’s lawyer Christopher Kise countered that his client’s valuations were actually too low, and were based on business acumen that let Trump build “one of the most successful real estate empires in the world.”
The trial could last until late this year.
Others expected to testify include the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer and controller, and Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen. Trump and his adult sons are also on James’ witness list.
After the trial ends, Trump still faces four criminal indictments over his efforts to undo his loss in the 2020 election, his handling of classified documents, and hush money paid to a porn star.
Trump has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty in all of the cases. He also faces a January civil damages trial for defaming a writer who accused him of rape, which he denies.
So far, the government cases have strengthened him politically, and his campaign is using the issue to raise money by making him appear to be a martyr for Democrats using sham court cases to prevent him from retaking the White House.
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The mother of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee waited anxiously at her home in Russia last weekend, expecting to hear heart-stopping news about her son Ravil Mingazov, who has been imprisoned in the United Arab Emirates since his release from Guantánamo six years ago.
In recent weeks, 87-year-old Zuhra Valiullina has grown convinced that something even worse could soon happen to Mingazov: He might be forced back to Russia, the country he fled after being persecuted for his Muslim faith.
As all but 30 prisoners from Guantánamo Bay have been released, the notorious detention center has faded from the headlines. But Mingazov’s case — fraught with geopolitics — has drawn an unusual level of public attention. A former Russian soldier and ballet dancer, he fled Russia in 1999 in search of a place where he and his family could live and practice their faith freely. He was picked up in a raid in Pakistan in early 2002, when the U.S. was paying bounty for suspects, according to Gary Thompson, Mingazov’s lawyer. Wrongly suspected of being a foreign fighter, Mingazov was handed over to U.S. forces, held and tortured at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and later transferred to Guantánamo, where he was never charged and should have never been, Thompson said.
During the Obama administration, Mingazov became one of 23 former detainees, most originally from Yemen, who were sent to the United Arab Emirates under a confidential diplomatic agreement with the U.S. State Department. The assurances contained in the secret diplomatic deal allegedly included provisions against being returned to a country where they would face torture, punishment, or irreparable harm. Mingazov told his family that he would attend a six-month residential rehabilitation program in the UAE before being released into Emirati society to restart his life as a free man. Instead, he has been held in extremely restrictive solitary confinement for nearly seven years in the United Arab Emirates, Valiullina told The Intercept.
Two months ago, Valiullina received a rare invitation to travel to the UAE to see her son. It was only the second time she had been allowed to visit him since he arrived there in January 2017, she said. During the August visit, an Emirati official told Valiullina that her son was “free to go” but that only Russia was willing to issue him a passport and accept him on its soil. The official said that her son would need to sign documents that would trigger his repatriation to Russia; the documents, along with assurances that he “would not be persecuted” once back in Russia, would be delivered by Russian Ambassador to the UAE Timur Zabirov on September 23.
The ambassador apparently didn’t show up on that day, but Valiullina and her grandson Yusuf, Mingazov’s only son, fear he could arrive anytime.
“Russia poses a life-threatening danger to my father,” Yusuf told The Intercept. “I implore the authorities in the U.S. and U.K. to intervene and cease the ongoing suffering that he is enduring unjustly.”
Zabirov did not respond to a request for comment emailed to the Russian Embassy in the UAE.
In September, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, or OHCHR, issued a dire warning against returning Mingazov to Russia, saying that his forcible repatriation would be a clear violation of international human rights law. “We call on the Governments involved to observe their international obligations, honour the diplomatic assurances provided for resettlement, and take into account the substantiated risks to Mr. Mingazov’s physical and moral integrity, if repatriated against his will,” the U.N. experts said.
U.N. Special Rapporteur on Counterterrorism and Human Rights Fionnuala Ní Aoláin called for the Biden administration to intervene, citing the UAE’s previous failures to make good on alleged assurances about Mingazov’s safety. “It’s deeply concerning that an assurance given to the United States appears to be broken without consequence,” Ní Aoláin said in an exclusive interview with The Intercept. “We need a White House, a high-level political intervention. It appears no one is willing to expend that political energy on a former Guantánamo detainee.”
Advocacy groups like the Center for Constitutional Rights, CAGE, and the OHCHR have long campaigned to free Mingazov from detention and prevent his repatriation to Russia. Since 2021, protesters have taken to the street outside the UAE Embassy in Washington to demand his release, most recently last month. There’s even been a petition by members of Parliament in the United Kingdom to bring Mingazov to London to reunite with his ex-wife and Yusuf, both of whom were granted asylum there in 2014.
Last week, Valiullina sent her other son, Mingazov’s older brother, to the UAE to try to intercept the Russian ambassador. She instructed him to rip up any documents provided by Russia. “We don’t believe the Russians at all on this,” she told The Intercept. (The older brother could not be reached for comment.)
Ravil Mingavoz, right, with his 87-year-old mother Zuhra Valiullina and older brother at a prison visitation room outside Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates in early August 2023.
Photo: Courtesy of Yusuf Mingazov
In August, at a prison about 125 miles outside of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Valiullina wept when she watched her son arrive with a blindfold over his face, his hands and feet shackled and chained. He had aged rapidly since she had last seen him three years earlier. For the first time, Mingazov was complaining of health issues that were going untreated, she said. The former dancer who performed with the Russian army ballet troupe was now shockingly thin, and his hair had gone completely gray. At one point, she was told that her son could leave anytime but that none of the many countries that had been approached to take him had agreed — except Russia. Disturbed, Valiullina reported these developments to Thompson.
“It’s bizarre that at this point the UAE would say to the mother, ‘Well, Ravil is free to go but he doesn’t have a passport. We’ll have to send him back to Russia then,’” Thompson said. “I mean, it makes no sense. It seems to be a deliberate pretext for the UAE to articulate why they’re sending him to Russia when they know they can’t — they know they promised our State Department they would never do that.”
Thompson says he never saw this coming. The UAE, a key U.S. ally, was supposed to be an end to Mingazov’s harrowing ordeal. Mingazov was thrilled, Thompson said, that he would finally get to live freely in a Muslim-majority country. Instead, his imprisonment was so horrific that he described it as torture in a 2021 phone call to his son. Yusuf recalled his father on the verge of tears, begging for a lawyer. As soon as he said this, the call was abruptly cut off, Yusuf said. It was the last call Mingazov was allowed to make to his son. Now the only person who receives any direct communication from Emirati officials is Mingazov’s elderly mother.
Thompson has not been allowed to speak with his client since Mingazov was released from Guantánamo. Incredibly, Thompson said he must rely completely on Valiullina, who only speaks Russian, to provide him with updates about his client. Valiullina receives her information from a UAE official who she knows only as “Ahmed” and who speaks “broken Russian,” according to Yusuf.
Why the UAE imprisoned the former Guantánamo detainees sent by there by the State Department is a mystery to Thompson. “It just doesn’t make sense why they kept anybody in prison — including the Yemenis. Why don’t they just do what they said they would do? Release him into Emirati society, give him a job, let him live a normal life the same way that many former detainees have in other countries they’ve been sent to in situations where they can’t go home?” Of the 23 former Guantánamo prisoners sent to the UAE, at least 20 were imprisoned there until their repatriation, according to the Associated Press. The Intercept has previously reported on the UAE’s forced repatriation of one of those former detainees, after he was held without access to a lawyer for five years.
“Mr. Mingazov is a twice victim of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment. Once while rendered and tortured by the United States at Guantánamo Bay Cuba, and twice while transferred to the UAE by the United States,” Ní Aoláin said. “It is inconceivable that he would be made a triple victim of torture while the United States stands idly on the sidelines.”
Lawyer Gary Thompson, right, and activists protested Ravil Mingazov’s detention and threat of repatriation to Russia and called on the U.K. to grant asylum at the United Arab Emirates Embassy in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 18, 2023.
Photo: Courtesy of Gary Thompson
While the UAE has proved to be a catastrophic resettlement option for Guantánamo prisoners, Russia would be even worse, Mingazov’s family says. Seven former Guantánamo detainees repatriated to Russia in 2004 were imprisoned again, tortured, and released, only to face harassment, abuse, persecution, and even death at the hands of Russian authorities, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights. The U.N. experts noted that Mingazov himself has always feared being returned to Russia, writing that “Ravil Mingazov consistently and vociferously demonstrated and raised his fear of irreparable harm if repatriated to the Russian Federation.”
While Mingazov languished in Guantánamo Bay, legal advocates warned against his repatriation to Russia. The Center for Constitutional Rights wrote in 2009 that he “cannot safely return to his home country because of the risk of torture or persecution. Russia is notorious for its persecution of Muslims and for torture and abuse in its prisons.”
“The diplomatic assurances given to the United States by their allies regarding the treatment of former Guantánamo detainees appear not to be worth the paper they are written on,” Ní Aoláin told The Intercept. “If diplomatic assurances mean anything, they mean that you do not transfer a torture victim to a state where he is at risk of harm. If this is true of U.S. citizens currently detained in Russia, it is equally true of former U.S. detainees who would be transferred there.”
“It’s like Vladimir Putin saying, ‘Trust me,’” Thompson told The Intercept. “It’s just not happening.”
Thompson said he has not heard back from the State Department on what, if anything, is being done to stop this new threat of transfer; his repeated attempts to contact the UAE ambassador to the U.S., Yousef Al Otaiba, likewise have gone unanswered. Otaiba did not respond to detailed questions from The Intercept about Mingazov’s detention.
U.S. Bureau of Counterterrorism spokesperson Vincent Picard declined to comment on the terms of the U.S. government’s agreement with the UAE regarding Mingazov’s resettlement or on what is happening with his case now. “Broadly speaking, the U.S. government registers its concern when it is unclear that a former detainee is being treated in a humane manner, and we remain in contact with governments to ensure they uphold their commitments and are prepared to address any issues through appropriate channels,” Picard told The Intercept. “The U.S. government remains interested in ensuring that former detainees are treated in a humane manner and that efforts are undertaken to rehabilitate and integrate them into local communities.”
Yusuf has tried for years to bring his father to the United Kingdom. In 2015, he asked the British Home Office to transfer Mingazov to the U.K. from Guantánamo, but the appeal was denied. With the threat of Russian repatriation looming, some British lawmakers are trying to reunite Yusuf with his father, or at the very least, urgently meet with UAE officials to stop Mingazov’s repatriation to Russia.
“The lack of clarity on this situation is incredibly frustrating,” U.K. member of Parliament Apsana Begum, one of several MPs who called on the country’s home secretary to approve Mingazov’s application for asylum in the U.K., told The Intercept. “The U.K. has to take responsibility for their role in circumstances that have led to a man — who has not been convicted of any crime and is not deemed a risk to anyone’s security — spending the last decades imprisoned in unacceptable conditions. In the name of humanity, this awful injustice must end, and Ravil must be allowed to rebuild his life and recover from the ordeals that he has suffered.”
After all these years, Valiullina’s dream is for her son to be reunited with Yusuf.
“There’s always a chance,” Yusuf said. “My goal is to do everything in my power to see my father’s swift release so that he can begin anew and have a joyful life amongst his loved ones.”
The post White House Faces Calls to Stop Ex-Guantánamo Detainee’s Forced Return to Russia appeared first on The Intercept.
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NPI’s Cascadia Advocate
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The top ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee said on Friday he had asked the US State Department to “pause” a portion of US military financing to Egypt that is conditioned on human rights criteria, Reuters reports.
Congress needs more clarity from @StateDept on how concerns about treatment of political prisoners, journalists, as well as the rule of law are being tackled in our bilateral relationship
Representative Gregory Meeks said in a statement released on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Washington has long provided Egypt with large amounts of military and other aid, ever since the Arab world’s most populous nation signed a peace deal with neighbouring Israel in 1979.
Much of the aid has been withheld in recent years over concerns about human rights abuses under President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s government, including political arrests, torture and enforced disappearances.
But President Joe Biden’s government announced, this month, that it had decided to waive human rights restrictions on $235 million of the aid, citing security benefits to the United States from sending it.
Sisi denies there are political prisoners in Egypt. He says stability and security are paramount and authorities are promoting rights by trying to provide basic needs such as jobs and housing.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Egypt aid has been in the spotlight this week after Senator Bob Menendez, the former Democratic Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was charged with accepting bribes in exchange for wielding his influence to aid the Egyptian government. He has pleaded not guilty.
READ: US Senator Menendez to appear in court on charges of receiving bribes from Egypt
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Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) spent years as the top Democrat on the powerful Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate, wielding tremendous influence over Congress, the White House and government agencies. With Menendez facing the biggest crisis of his career ― federal corruption charges and calls for his resignation from a growing number of his fellow Democrats ― he is almost certain to lose that position for good.
The upshot would be dramatic, involving big changes to the Democratic Party’s approach to international relations and to Washington’s national security establishment.
“The foreign policy implications are extremely significant,” one Democratic congressional aide told HuffPost. Referring to the West Virginia Democratic senator notorious for challenging his own party, the aide added: “You can’t overstate the extent to which Bob Menendez was the Joe Manchin of foreign policy.”
Menendez holds hawkish views on many global questions, notably Middle East matters such as diplomacy with Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as Latin American dilemmas like how the U.S. should deal with unfriendly governments in Cuba and Venezuela. Through public advocacy and private pressure, he has pushed for U.S. policy to reflect those opinions ― even when such shifts clash with most Democrats’ preferences and risk conflict or human rights violations.
Though Menendez largely supported Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden on domestic issues, he broke with both of them on foreign policy in high-profile ways.
“For him to be the one who determines the caucus’ foreign policy agenda is pretty bizarre,” said Matt Duss, who served as the foreign policy advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) from 2017 to 2022.
“When you know that the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee has these very hard-line views, that constrains your concept of the possible ― especially when you have an administration that doesn’t want to spend a whole lot of time arguing about foreign policy,” continued Duss, who is now the executive vice president of the Center for International Policy think tank.
Menendez temporarily stepped down from his role as the committee’s chairman last week due to the criminal charges against him, which allege he took bribes in exchange for official favors that benefited Egypt and New Jersey businessmen. He maintains his innocence and his ultimate fate in the Senate remains unclear.
Nearly all Democratic lawmakers broadly share a vision for the U.S.’s role in the world: being engaged and powerful but not overbearing, championing democratic principles and encouraging other nations to do the same, and bolstering America’s network of alliances and global coalitions to address concerns like climate change. If Menendez is permanently replaced as the committee’s chair, his successor could be more focused on promoting that agenda ― and mend intra-Democratic rifts on international matters.
“He was, under both Obama and Biden, in the way of a ton of Democratic Party priorities,” the Democratic congressional aide said. “No matter who replaces him, the door opens for a much saner policy towards Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and down the line to Taiwan.”
On the coattails of Biden’s 2020 election victory, Democrats captured the Senate for the first time since 2014, and Menendez rose from ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee to its chairman.
He quickly signaled that he would not help Biden achieve one of the president’s chief foreign policy promises from the campaign trail: reentering the international pact to limit Iran’s nuclear program. When Obama helped craft the deal in 2015, Menendez was one of only four Democratic senators to vote against it.
Three years later, President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement. Iran drastically increased its nuclear capabilities in response. Most Democrats and many national security experts said Biden should prioritize ratcheting down tensions.
Yet administration officials knew Menendez had influence over many of the president’s other priorities, too. They ultimately took a more modest approach to diplomacy with Iran than most observers expected. Today, they are far from resurrecting the Obama-era deal, with Iran’s nuclear development continuing to defy restraints. Menendez was not the sole reason for that choice, but his influence was an important factor, observers said.
“There is a feeling among many in the foreign policy community that … the Biden administration did not initially pursue a reentry to [the Iran deal] because they feared retribution from Chairman Menendez, specifically that he would not move quickly to put their nominees through the confirmation process or retaliate by tying their hands,” said a national security advocate who requested anonymity to speak frankly about a senator who has openly boasted about remembering and seeking revenge against his critics.
“One of the reasons why the administration chose to slow-walk rejoining the deal — which was a disastrous decision in my view — was they wanted Menendez’s cooperation. We now may very well lose the [deal] altogether,” Duss said.
Menendez also opposed another signature Obama policy reversed by Trump: greater U.S. engagement with Cuba.
The son of Cuban immigrants who fled the country, Menendez argues easing American sanctions on the island nation only empowers its authoritarian regime ― and rejects the argument that sanctions largely hurt regular Cubans, not Havana’s leaders.
Menendez’s views on Cuba and his similar take on Venezuela made it trickier for the Biden administration to forge a softer policy than Trump to address migrant flows and reduce U.S. friction with key Latin American governments.
And on Israel-Palestine, an issue on which Democratic voters and lawmakers have shown a striking shift, Menendez has maintained a traditionalist view that largely jibes with conservatives in Israel and the U.S.
“He’s typically the lead Democratic member on legislation that actually works against U.S. interests in moving [Israel and Palestine] towards a two-state solution and countering deepening occupation,” the national security advocate said.
When hard-line Israel advocates rallied against Biden’s pick for the top human rights job at the State Department, Sarah Margon, and Republicans refused to support her, Menendez declined to bring her up for a Foreign Relations Committee vote. Margon withdrew her nomination earlier this year.
The human rights position is now widely expected to remain unfilled for the rest of Biden’s time in office, and many progressives working on national security say the episode sent an alarming signal to their community.
Amid Washington’s highest-profile foreign policy debate, over how far to ramp up U.S.-China competition, Menendez distinguished himself as one of the Democrats most supportive of demonstrating strength to Beijing regardless of the risks. The New Jersey senator pushed a bill to drastically upgrade U.S. links with Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as its territory. The Democratic aide recalled hearing from military contacts that they viewed it as dangerous.
Under Menendez, Democrats’ approach to international affairs was also defined ― and sometimes undercut ― by his style of operating, people who worked with the senator and his team say.
“It’s not just that Menendez was hawkish — it’s that he threw his weight around to an extraordinary degree,” a former Senate staffer told HuffPost on condition of anonymity.
The current aide described Menendez’s team as dealing with even an administration of their own party in a way that “is always Jersey, kind of a shakedown: ‘the chairman will be angry if you do this.’”
“Even with people who agree with him on politics or policy, it’s very hard to imagine who would miss him,” the aide continued.
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) has temporarily taken over as chair of the foreign relations panel.
Bringing stability to the critical committee is the immediate challenge for Cardin, given the scandal over Menendez’s alleged corruption and discontent over his chairmanship.
“The committee’s culture needs to change and that will be hard with legacy staff there,” said a current Senate staffer who would only speak on the basis of anonymity.
“It’s not just that Menendez was hawkish — it’s that he threw his weight around to an extraordinary degree.”
– Former Senate staffer
The staffer noted that Menendez’s charges “brought into question the committee’s integrity” because they focused on foreign matters, specifically illegally helping the Egyptian government.
Critics of the regime in Cairo like Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D) want officials to probe Egypt’s interference in U.S. policymaking and the possibility that Menendez shielded the Egyptian regime for corrupt reasons. Analysts say there are signs the alleged scheme implicated Menendez and the committee in preventing accountability for Saudi agents’ murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
Those questions are linked to a key overall question: how far Democrats and the committee will go now in reconsidering Menendez’s record. One aide noted a contrast between Menendez’s years of demanding justice for Khashoggi and his alleged crimes, “However good he may have been, he was running interference for the Egyptians on their part, so that taints it.”
Additionally, Democrats will need to address fears among some core constituencies who appreciated elements of Menendez’s records.
“He’s a staunch defender of foreign aid and a robust and expanding diplomatic corps and arguably one of the best on immigration policy,” the national security advocate told HuffPost. “There are those in the progressive foreign policy community for whom this is a real, real difficult moment particularly because he has amassed such power and sway and has been good on these issues.”
Still, many Democrats and people who work with them largely see a moment of possibility in Menendez’s expected ouster, given the likelihood of fresh leadership that channels the range of views in the party.
U.S. and Iranian officials are inching towards a return to nuclear diplomacy that could be especially vital given the risk of a second Trump term come 2025. “That’s going to be a lot easier without Bob Menendez,” the national security advocate said.
Additionally, a new chair could promote “some better conversation” regarding Biden’s push for an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel that involves U.S. promises that most Democrats see as unpalatable, Duss said. He hopes the committee will be clear “it’s not a Saudi-Israel normalization deal ― it’s a Saudi-U.S. security pact.”
Cardin will retire in 2025. Eventually, Democrats on the panel will likely be led by Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) or Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), though there could be a bid by a younger alternative like Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).
Nearly any successor to Menendez would give Democrats more breathing room to be creative around foreign policy ― even a more centrist figure, as the example of Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) has shown in the House of Representatives. He defeated a progressive challenge to become the leading Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee but has often worked with more liberal colleagues.
“We have a moment where it’d be great to have someone in this position who is more representative of where Democrats are generally,” in terms of supporting diplomacy and opposing military intervention, Duss said. “Whoever it is will be taking the gavel at a time when the progressive wing of the party is growing more powerful and we’ve only started to see that on foreign policy.”
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The post ‘The Joe Manchin Of Foreign Policy’: Menendez Case Could Mean Sea Change For Democrats On National Security first appeared on The News And Times – thenewsandtimes.com.
Kyiv Post has become the first Ukraine-based news organization to be placed alongside the world’s elite publications with a 100% rating from the renowned independent News Guard rating platform.
The post Great News for Kyiv Post and Prestigious Top Global Ratings for Ukrainian Journalism first appeared on The News And Times – thenewsandtimes.com.
