The uranium one scandal had to do with actual obstruction of an investigation and coverup of a criminal enterprise after large sums of bribe money changed hands
This story on the other hand just details the dueling foreign policy agendas of different factions.
Both examples of the abuse of investigative authority that has domestic politics impinging upon international relations, but in opposite directions.
How is the government supposed to function at geopolitics when no matter which entities we are dealing with, their opponents back home can just scream that any pragmatic diplomacy with them constitutes sinister plots and treason and should be investigated as a criminal conspiracy? That's what has poisoned our ability to deal with Russia & China on an international stage already, and here it is again with Saudi Arabia.
But the two aren't comparable. Just look at the complaint here, it hinges on moral objections to dealing with a country that killed jamal khashoggi, on objections to the agenda of nuclear cooperation with saudi arabia in general, on the state of bureaucratic dysfunction and chaos, and on contrasting opinions between ethical advisors. The only legal complaint over the atomic energy act and congressional review are spurious and no different than executive diplomacy on any other subject. I mean seriously, how long ago was the Iran Deal, has it been forgotten already, how can such an objection be raised without the god of hypocrisy smiting down elijah cummings on the spot? Or is he trying to usurp his portfolio and join the pantheon.
Meanwhile in the Uranium One scandal, it hinged upon the specific allegation of the existence of a criminal racketeering and bribery enterprise by Russian businessmen that had corrupted uranium shipping, and that the FBI slowrolled and hushed up the investigation to avoid jeopardizing the Iran Deal right after those same Russian businessmen gave the Clinton Foundation hundreds of millions of dollars- while telling an informant about how they were donating that money specifically to buy influence and get that oversight approval. Which they did. And all this took place contemporary with the Hezbollah drug & gun operation scandal where the DEA was hamstrung by the Obama administration and told to stop their investigation again to help smooth over the Iran Deal. Same thing.
See the difference is, the Uranium One scandal wasn't about just objecting to the Iran Deal and saying that anyone who deals with Iran is a traitor and that anyone who has ever had any shady dealings and was involved in the Iran Deal must be investigated for high crimes. It was about a specific and well evidenced obstruction of justice scandal over a criminal enterprise we know exists, involving bribery we know occurred. The Obama administration had legitimate ideological reasons to pursue the Iran Deal, ones that I might agree with, but did so by covering up crimes and letting criminals go free- and that's the scandal, not the deal itself. Meanwhile in this case, the democrats want to demonize and investigate Rick Perry for his ideological-driven pursuit of the Saudi nuclear cooperation deal. Is someone going to go out and pretend that Rick Perry is an agent of a foreign power? lmao. There's no specific allegation of corruption or overt criminal acts. The worst they can dream up is some tortured after-the-fact reinterpretation of whether every I was dotted and every T crossed for ambiguous statutes that the democrats themselves completely ignored the last time around, the ridiculous hypocrites they are.
Nobody should ever have said that the Iran Deal or Saudi nuclear cooperation should be undermined with criminal investigations as a means to advance an agenda. Not by republicans, not by democrats. To take a narrow specific response to provable criminal wrong-doing is one thing, but should be immaterial to the policy itself. To oppose the executive overreach with judicial-branch objections that tackle the constitutionality of the action itself is also a legitimate recourse, as is direct legislative action to overrule it, or just getting a new president elected to unilaterally undo it- which is exactly what Trump did to the Iran Deal. But when you start injecting mccarthyist witchhunting into geopolitics, you jeopardize both our diplomatic capabilities and the legitimacy of our democracy.
This post was edited by Goomshill on Feb 19 2019 02:46pm