1/ This is how is shadow foreign policy operates. White House officials hold meetings with their Ukrainian counterparts in which a Presidential meeting is discussed, and some White House officials object to Biden conditions. 2/ nbcnews.com/politics/trump…
2/ Gordon Sondland, who is not in the bureaucratic chain of command and owes his influence over Ukraine entirely to Trump, pulls Ukrainian officials into another room and just states that a meeting with Trump is conditioned upon Burisma and Hunter Biden investigation.
3/ Who does the historian predict the Ukrainians listen to? Normally, one would expect the highest ranking official they met with. But Trump uses all sorts of proxies when the bureaucracy won’t cooperate, and other countries know this, and so have to judge who *really* speaks.
4/ This Ukraine scandal is a study in how to think about bureaucracies. Trump, by pursuing a “shadow” policy, makes normal functioning of the foreign policy bureaucracy impossible, since others know Trump’s personal interest looms over all and only proxies for him can be trusted.
