Former Secretary of State John Kerry (shown) has been trying to undermine U.S. foreign policy vis-à-vis Iran since May, and President Trump has finally had enough.
On Thursday, the president lambasted Kerry, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and its Deep-State cabal, saying he might have violated the law. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo followed Trump’s lead on Friday.
Kerry admits meeting with Iranian leaders and other foreign potentates, although he doesn’t say his mission is sabotaging Trump’s foreign policy.
Iran Deal
Kerry is trying to undo what Trump did to the CFR notable’s singular achievement: a treaty that might well have been averse to American interests.
The Iran Deal, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, controls Iran’s development and use of nuclear power in two important ways: First, it “will ensure the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.” Second, “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.”
The pact, which was never ratified by the U.S. Senate as required by the Constitution, allowed Iran the peaceful pursuit of nuclear power and ended UN, U.S., and European Union nuclear-relations sanctions against Iran.
President Trump said he pulled out of the deal because it “allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium and, over time, reach the brink of a nuclear breakout.”
“The deal,” Trump said, “lifted crippling economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for very weak limits on the regime’s nuclear activity, and no limits at all on its other malign behavior, including its sinister activities in Syria, Yemen, and other places all around the world.”
Trump reimposed sanctions last month. In July, he offered to meet with Iran’s leaders.
Kerry’s Activities
Regardless of what one may think of Trump’s foreign policy, there is no question that policy should be made by those authorized to mae the policy, not by the Deep State working against the visibie, elected government of the United States. But the Deep State never sleeps, and so the Bay State CFR man undertook his subversion, the Boston Globe divulged, in May.
The leftist newspaper disclosed that Kerry’s “engaged in some unusual shadow diplomacy with a top-ranking Iranian official.”
Kerry met “at the United Nations with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to discuss ways of preserving the pact limiting Iran’s nuclear weapons program. It was the second time in about two months that the two had met to strategize over salvaging a deal they spent years negotiating during the Obama administration, according to a person briefed on the meetings.”
Kerry, the The Globe reported, “was on an aggressive yet stealthy mission to preserve it, using his deep lists of contacts gleaned during his time as the top US diplomat to try to apply pressure on the Trump administration from the outside.”
If true, Kerry might have violated the Logan Act, a law that forbids private diplomacy, or as Trump said, the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Tweeted Trump, “John Kerry had illegal meetings with the very hostile Iranian Regime, which can only serve to undercut our great work to the detriment of the American people. He told them to wait out the Trump Administration! Was he registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act? BAD!”
At a news conference, Pompeo said he would let legal authorities settle whether Kerry committed a crime or civil violations of the law. But he zinged Kerry’s unsanctioned diplomacy, calling it “unseemly and unprecedented” and “beyond inappropriate.”
Continued Pompeo: “This is a former secretary of state engaged with the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, and according to him … he was talking with the, he was telling them to wait out this administration.”
“You can’t find precedent for this in U.S. history, and Secretary Kerry ought not to engage in that kind of behavior. It’s inconsistent with what foreign policy of the United States is as directed by this president, and it is beyond inappropriate for him to be engaged.”
Pompeo said he saw Kerry and former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and former Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman in Munich when they attended the annual Munich Security Conference. The “troika” met to continue undermining U.S. policy. “I wasn’t in the meeting,” said Pompeo, “but I am reasonably confident that he was not there in support of U.S. policy with respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
As expected, Kerry fired back: “Mr. President, you should be more worried about Paul Manafort meeting with Robert Mueller than me meeting with Iran’s FM. But if you want to learn something about the nuclear agreement that made the world safer, buy my new book, Every Day Is Extra.”
Helpfully, Kerry provided a link so followers might more easily purchase the book.
Indeed, Kerry is on a book tour, so the controversy will undoubtedly help sales. Appearing with public intellectual Bill Maher, Kerry said Trump is “the first president that I know of who spends more time reading his Twitter likes than his briefing books or the Constitution of the United States.”
Kerry, who might have violated the Logan Act when he met with Palestinian leaders in January, said his meetings were nothing to worry about because “everybody does,” meaning former secretaries of state such as Henry Kissinger.
As for Trump, Kerry said, “soon you’ll be hearing him say that was the worst deal that’s ever been made. It’s gone from the art of the deal to the art of the squeal.”
Maher’s bovine herd squealed approval.
Photo of John Kerry: U.S. State Department
