President Donald Trump threatened Monday to cut off contact with Britain’s ambassador to the United States after leaked diplomatic cables revealed the envoy called the Trump administration “dysfunctional” and “inept.”
The U.S. leader tweeted about Ambassador Kim Darroch a day after a British newspaper published the diplomat’s unflattering assessments of the current administration in Washington.
“I do not know the Ambassador, but he is not liked or well thought of within the US. We will no longer deal with him,” Trump wrote.
The documents – published in the Mail on Sunday newspaper – have created awkwardness among countries that are longtime allies. British officials said they were hunting for the culprit behind the leak, which was both an embarrassment to Prime Minister Theresa May’s government and a major breach of diplomatic security.
….thought of within the U.S. We will no longer deal with him. The good news for the wonderful United Kingdom is that they will soon have a new Prime Minister. While I thoroughly enjoyed the magnificent State Visit last month, it was the Queen who I was most impressed with!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 8, 2019
Darroch has served as Britain’s envoy to Washington since 2016. The cables cover a period from 2017 to recent weeks. His statements included calling the Trump administration’s policy toward Iran “incoherent,” saying the president might be indebted to “dodgy Russians” and raising doubts about whether the White House “will ever look competent.”
“We don’t really believe this administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept,” one missive said.
The documents were intended for senior U.K. ministers and civil servants. Government officials think the mole will be found among British politicians or officials, not in foreign governments or among people who aren’t British.
“I’ve seen nothing to suggest hostile state actors were involved,” said May’s spokesman, James Slack.
Some U.K. diplomatic cables go to more than 100 recipients, though more sensitive messages have a smaller distribution list.
The inquiry is being led by civil servants in the Cabinet Office, and Slack said police would only be called in “if evidence of criminality is found.”
But Conservative U.K. lawmaker Tom Tugendhat, who chairs Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said he wrote to the chief of London’s Metropolitan Police asking for a criminal investigation into the leak.
It’s possible the leaker could be charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act, which bars public servants from making “damaging” disclosures of classified material. Breaching the act carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison, though prosecutions are rare.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said there would be “very serious consequences” if the culprit was caught.
He said the ability to communicate frankly was “fundamental” to diplomacy.
Amid the strained environment, Trump on Monday renewed his criticism of the outgoing prime minister’s handling of Britain’s stalled departure from the European Union.
“I have been very critical about the way the U.K. and Prime Minister Theresa May handled Brexit,” he tweeted. “What a mess she and her representatives have created. I told her how it should be done, but she decided to go another way.”
He added: “The good news for the wonderful United Kingdom is that they will soon have a new Prime Minister.”
May is set to step down later this month, replaced either by Hunt or by his predecessor as foreign secretary, former London mayor Boris Johnson. Trump has previously praised both men.
Slack said May had “full faith” in Darroch, a long-serving diplomat, though didn’t agree with the ambassador’s characterization of the Trump administration.
He said ambassadors were hired to provide “honest, unvarnished assessments” of politics in the countries where they served, which didn’t necessarily reflect the views of the British government.
But Trump’s tweets increased the pressure on Britain’s government over Darroch, who also has been accused by some Brexit-backing U.K. politicians of having a lack of enthusiasm for Britain’s departure from the EU.
The journalist who reported the leak, Isabel Oakeshott, is a strong supporter of Brexit and an ally of Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, who also is Britain’s leading champion of Trump.
Trump said in 2016 that Farage would “do a great job” as an ambassador to Washington.
Farage brushed off that idea Monday, saying “I’m not a diplomat, and I think that’s quite an understatement.”
But Farage said Darroch’s comments were “pretty irresponsible.”
Robin Renwick, who served as Britain’s ambassador to Washington in the 1990s, said Darroch had done nothing wrong but the leaked cables had made his position “untenable.”
“There will of course be a decent interval. He will then have to be moved on,” Renwick told the BBC.
International Trade Secretary Liam Fox called the leak “malicious.”
“I think it is unconscionable that any professional person in either politics of the civil service can behave in this way,” he said.
Fox, who was meeting Trump’s daughter Ivanka in Washington on Monday, told the BBC he would apologize for the fact that standards of “either our civil service or elements of our political class” had “lapsed in a most extraordinary and unacceptable way.”
(AP)
6 Responses
Man, i sure hope that no one leaks any israely diplomatic corospondance, otherwise,…..!!!!
Apparently, Queen Elizabeth is considering knighthood for Ambassador Daroch for his cogent and insightful assessment o the Trumpkopf and his administration. Way to go Sir Kim. The leak was obviously timed to coincide with th pending change in UK government as Boris Johnson takes over fo PM May in the next two months.
And next time the Brits get into trouble, the US will say no to helping like they did at least three times in the 20th century.
If that is how Britain repays its benefactors by bad mouthing its elected leader, why should they be helped out. If the Ambassador doesn’t like the way MR Trump runs the white house, go back home.
PS I am British! But not that proud of it!
Charedi Amiti
Very much on point. I’d love to see the unedited cables from Danny Danon and his team in Washington back to Bibi regarding the administration. I’m not a big Netanyahu fan but I have to give him credit for how well he has played the Trumpkopf. They have wrapped arms around each other (two prospective felons in a pod) where each is able project to their followers that they are getting the better of the other. Between the two, Bibi is clearly much smarter and more strategic and has extracted much more from the relationship. Trump uses Israel to reinforce his right wing Christian Evangelical base (did you notice the VP and half the Trump cabinet this weekend running over to speak to the Annual Goyim for Israel meeting in Washington ??)
The British have a long history of working against Trump in the Christopher Steele saga. May did not do a thing to prevent fraudulent disinformation from damaging the US and Trump (probably thinking of a better relationship under Clinton)
She has also allowed the U.K. to vote against Israel several times in the past years. Thanks to the Mossad information of the past few weeks a serious Hezbollah attack was prevented. Yet the british consistently support and allow radical Islam to base itself in the U.K. Theresa May’s silence in response to consistent anti-semitism in the BBC and other forums show that the only thing she cares about is saving her own (political) skin (and she has failed to do so anyway
factualactual, you doubt Steele Dossier? Just ask Gadolhadorah and chareidi stupidi, they will tell you it is 100% true.