United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking Wednesday in the African country Congo, expressed concern about the detention of Jean-Marc Kabund, the former vice president of Congo’s parliament. Blinken referred to the detention of Kabund as “a possible setback to the importance of having the right environment for elections and the civic space with the detention of a opposition political leader.”
Hmmm. How about the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raid and seizure this week at the home of Donald Trump, an opposition leader, immediate past president of the United States, and likely challenger of the current president in the next election? Might that raid and seizure create in America a setback to having the right environment for elections and civic space?
To make things less confusing for foreign governments it hectors, the State Department could append the following to its mission statement: “Do as the United States government says, not as it does.”