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Thursday, May 24th, 2018

The Diplomat Who Quit the Trump Administration

Author:     Jon Lee Anderson
Source:     The New Yorker
Publication Date:     May 28, 2018 Issue
 Link: The Diplomat Who Quit the Trump Administration
Stephan:   The Republican congress is as pusillanimous a group of creeps as one could conjure up in a novel, providing a study in failure. Every day they place party, and personal power over the wellbeing of country. Happily, there are still men and women of honor in government service. Here is the story of one of them.

Ambassador John Feeley
“My values are not his values,” John Feeley said, of Trump. He quit this March.
Illustration by Lincoln Agnew. Photographs by (from top to bottom): Arnulfo Franco / AP (head); DAJ / Getty (body); Mark Reinstein / Corbis / Getty (building); Helovi / Getty (beach)

John Feeley, the Ambassador to Panama and a former Marine helicopter pilot, is not averse to strong language, but he was nevertheless startled by his first encounter with President Donald Trump. Summoned to deliver a briefing in June, 2017, he was outside the Oval Office when he overheard Trump concluding a heated conversation, “Fuck him! Tell him to sue the government.” Feeley was escorted in, and saw that Mike Pence, John Kelly, and several other officials were in the room. As he took a seat, Trump asked, “So tell me—what do we get from Panama? What’s in it for us?” Feeley presented a litany of benefits: help with counter-narcotics work and migration control, commercial efforts linked to the Panama Canal, a close […]

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1 Comment

  1. Albus Eddie on Thursday, May 24, 2018 at 9:48 am

    “the strong do what they will and the weak do what they must.” As a nation which has bombed or invaded about 20 countries around the world in the past fifty years (including Panama), it is hard to see how this world view can be ignored. I’m sure it’s quite enjoyable to swap tales, enjoy scotch and jazz in a country whose government we recently replaced. I’m glad Mr. Feeley has values he will stand for, but he must be something of a slow learner.