Congress demands Trump stop hiding his North Korea secrets

Congress is slamming Trump for hiding the details of his negotiations with the North Korean government.

House Foreign Affairs Chair Eliot Engel, House Armed Services Chair Adam Smith, and House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff sent a joint letter addressed to Trump.

“We are perplexed and troubled by the growing disconnect between the Intelligence Community’s assessment and your administration’s statements about Kim Jong Un’s actions, commitments, and intentions,” they wrote.

U.S. intelligence agencies have repeatedly said that the North Korean government has continued to pursue weapons of mass destruction and the missile technology to use those weapons. The North Korean government has threatened the use of those weapons against South Korea, a key American ally, as well as Japan and other countries. North Korea has even made bellicose threats about American soil in Hawaii and on the west coast.

And while all this was happening, Trump has falsely claimed that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat, and has continued to attack intelligence agencies who have revealed how ineffective his diplomacy is by contradicting them and publicly fuming at their assessments.

In reality, his cringe-inducing attempts at diplomacy have only helped legitimize Kim’s government while weakening the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

The joint letter also called out Trump for not coming clean about the details of his meetings with North Korea.

“Our ability to conduct oversight of U.S. policy toward North Korea on behalf of the American people has been inappropriately curtailed by your administration’s unwillingness to share information with Congress,” the letter states.

Trump reportedly plans to have more secret, unaccountable, interactions with Kim Jong Un at the upcoming summit in Vietnam.

Thae Yong Ho, former North Korean ambassador to the United Kingdom and now a defector, recently held a press conference to warn that Trump fell into a “trap” set by Kim. Trump is ill-equipped to personally counter the North Koreans and risks setting up America and its allies for massive future failures.

Trump similarly had a private one-on-one meeting with Vladimir Putin, which has given Russia the ability to lead the United States around by the nose. Because the meeting was private, Putin has been able to claim Trump made statements and commitments he cannot deny.

All three members of Congress have already made multiple information requests relating to intelligence in North Korea that went unanswered when Republicans controlled the House and Trump’s fellow Republicans refused to conduct even basic oversight of his administration.

But Trump won’t have a shield anymore with Democrats in charge, and they’ve only just begun to call him out.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.