Everyone in Washington set their hair on fire following White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s apparent admission of a quid pro quo for assistance to Ukraine in his news conference last week. But are quid pro quos really that bad? (Depends on the quo.) Has the US government used them before? And shouldn’t foreign aid always be dependent on getting something that’s good for America in return?

Dany and Marc sat down with former Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff director Lester Munson to discuss those fateful Latin words. Munson explains that contrary to what many in Washington are saying today, the United States uses quid pro quos in foreign aid all the time. In fact, Americans should expect the US to use quid pro quos when giving away their hard earned tax dollars to foreign governments. That said, no president should leverage aid on getting a foreign leader to investigate a political opponent.

Lester Munson is a
Principal in the International at BGR Group. He also serves as adjunct faculty
at Johns Hopkins University and speaks regularly on the foreign policy role of
Congress and on US foreign assistance issues. He is a member of the
Executive Committee of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, a Visiting
Fellow at George Mason’s National Security Institute, and a commentator on Fox
News Channel and the China Global Television Network.

 

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  1. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Ricochet Audio Network:

     That said, no president should leverage aid on getting a foreign leader to investigate a political opponent.

    Meaning President Trump, and only President Trump, should not investigate the former Democrat Vice President’s corruption in office, since Biden is now running for office. And, of course, the Clintons must not be touched, because Hillary was the 2016 Democratic Party candidate and might just enter the 2020 race. 

    • #1
  2. Architectus Coolidge
    Architectus
    @Architectus

    Good grief.  Did Ms. Pletka actually read the transcript of the call?  Or just listen to Schiff’s “synopsis”?

    • #2
  3. LibertyDefender Member
    LibertyDefender
    @LibertyDefender

    Architectus (View Comment):

    Good grief. Did Ms. Pletka actually read the transcript of the call? Or just listen to Schiff’s “synopsis”?

    I downloaded this podcast by mistake.  I don’t know which podcast I thought I had downloaded, but Ms. Pletka’s TDS-infected commentary isn’t just as vapid and inaccurate as I remembered from the episode with Karl Rove, but in this podcast she convinced me she’s acting in bad faith.  There’s no other rational explanation for her shallow, reflexively anti-Trump conclusions that she reaches based on few if any facts.

    • #3
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