Longtime South Korean Spy Gets the Boot

Espionage and illicit influence are how the geopolitical game gets played, by our friends and enemies alike

Ever since Donald Trump entered the presidential race nine years ago, foreign influence in American politics has been a hot topic in the media. At least when Russians and Republicans are involved, that is. The Democrat-aligned media’s obsession with Kremlin spies and their relationship with the GOP, especially anybody named Trump, continues to this day, although any earth-based discussion of this complex matter got drowned out in partisan cacophony years ago.

This myopic focus on Russia obscures that Beijing represents an even greater espionage threat to the U.S. and the West than Moscow does. Moreover, Chinese political influence operations are at least as malign as Russia’s, yet this tenebrous topic is mostly avoided by the media, since the Democrats have a significant problem there, particularly involving California. The spy and influence games played by Cuba likewise are something that Democrats and their media friends tend to circumvent, since Havana’s espionage at times has gotten uncomfortably close to Democrat notables.

Then there’s the challenge that it’s not just our enemies who try to clandestinely buy (or at least rent) influence in Washington, DC. Across the Middle East, many countries vie to shift U.S. policy their way with bags of cash and gifts. Longtime Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who served twice as chair of the Senate’s powerful foreign relations committee, was just convicted on a raft of federal charges stemming from his taking of gifts from Egypt and Qatar. These gifts included gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz, plus almost a half-million dollars in cash. In this criminal affair Menendez’s greedy new bride – a Levantine chiseler whom the pol implausibly met at an International House of Pancakes – played a significant role, but the senator was already a standout for corruption before she entered his life.