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Baku's InterContinental hotel has a suspicious history. When the land around the hotel was put up for auction, the details of the land's address and size were purposefully blacked out.

Momentum in Washington to cut or eliminate U.S. funding for a United Nations agency that aids Palestinians is moving forward almost entirely unchecked. But it's based on unproven allegations — largely uncritically amplified by U.S. media — that the agency's staff had links to Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The allegations are contained in an Israeli government dossier claiming that 13 employees (one of which was not identified), out of a total of 13,000, at the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) either took part or assisted in the Hamas-led atrocities. Israel notified UNRWA of the allegations early last month and authorities at the U.N. agency immediately fired the 12 employees without conducting an investigation. News of the allegations broke soon thereafter which opened the floodgates of knee-jerk reactions, including donor countries pausing their funding for UNRWA — which could result in millions of Palestinians in Gaza stranded without aid amid a humanitarian crisis —and efforts in Washington to cut UNRWA's funding entirely and forever.Meanwhile, these debates have been buttressed by inaccurate media coverage of Israel's allegations. More specifically, many major U.S. news outlets have been leaving out one key detail when reporting on the Israeli dossier: while the Israelis make a number of claims and accusations that they say are based on intelligence and other source data, the document itself contains no direct evidence that these 12 identified UNRWA employees participated in or assisted the Oct. 7 attack. Some outlets at least tried to make this point clear in wider stories or segments on the saga. For example, the Associated Press has noted that the Israelis provided no evidence. CBS News's Debora Patta noted on the network's Nightly News program on January 29 that in the document, "Israel accuses 12 UNRWA employees of being involved in the October 7 Hamas attack, including the kidnapping of Israeli citizens," adding, "But they have yet to provide evidence substantiating these claims."CNN reported that the network "has not seen the intelligence that underlies the summary of allegations" and that that summary "does not provide evidence to support its claims." CNN anchor Anna Coren asked Ophir Falk, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu, to provide evidence — which he could not — and wondered why the alleged perpetrators haven't been arrested. "Well the first step is for them to be fired," Falk said. Outside of the AP, CBS, and CNN, major U.S. media reporting on this issue has largely accepted the Israeli claims or have even gone further as to advance the Israeli narrative on UNRWA. The New York Times, for example, has published several stories on the UNRWA saga, and none of them have mentioned that the Israeli dossier has no specific evidence (it's probably worth noting here that one of the reporters covering this issue for the Times once served in the Israeli Defense Forces).The Wall Street Journal published a lengthy article giving credence to the Israeli allegations and in another, reported that the dossier "is the most detailed look yet at the widespread links between the UNRWA employees and militants." Another Journal article said the allegations are "a blow" to UNRWA without telling readers the dossier provides no evidence. Meanwhile, ABC World News Tonight's report on the dossier not only failed to tell its viewers it contains no specific evidence, but it went a step further reporting that "the U.N. has not denied the claims."Others like NBC Nightly News and the Washington Post provided lengthy coverage of the Israeli allegations and mention only in passing that the outlets have not independently verified the claims. Conversely, some non-traditional media outlets have been more forceful in their coverage of the dossier, making the lack of evidence a key feature of their reporting. For example, Breaking Points' Krystal Ball this week took the Israeli claims to task. "It is literally just a[n] evidence-free list of allegations, …no actual evidence is provided," she said, adding, "Now maybe they did participate and maybe they didn't. I can tell you there is definitely not enough that has been provided to say anything about this. Again, zero evidence provided."Most of the mainstream reports also omit key contextual information, like for example, that UNRWA routinely provides the Israeli government with a list of the names of its employees, or that many on the right in Israel, and their allies in the United States, have been trying to shut down UNRWA for decades because they believe the U.N. agency legitimizes Palestinians' claims to land they say was stolen by Israel. "There has been a long standing aim for Republicans and some Democrats in Congress to defund UNRWA long before Oct. 7, as they see the agency as responsible for enabling the right of return to be an ever growing final status issue," Joel Braunold, managing director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, told RS. Indeed, the Biden administration worked with Senate leaders this week on an aid bill that would bar any funding from going to UNRWA and prevent any funding going to the agency that has already been allocated to it. And the House is now considering a bill that would permanently block U.S. funds to UNRWA."While the bipartisan consensus is not where the House is currently, the Overton window has shifted closer to those wishing for congressional cut off to the agency," Braunold said. Meanwhile, UNRWA says it will run out of money by the end of February if donor countries like the United States continue to withhold their funding. Top U.N. officials are pleading with donors to keep the agency funded. "Our humanitarian operation, on which 2 million people depend as a lifeline in Gaza, is collapsing," UNRWA Commissioner-General Phillipe Lazzarini said in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter. "Palestinians in Gaza did not need this additional collective punishment."Former UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness is asking wealthy countries in the region to underwrite the aid agency should its funding collapse at the end of the month. "Some of the most desperate people in the Middle East are now facing starvation, they're facing famine, and the Arab states need to step up to the plate," he said.It appears that the Biden administration agrees with that sentiment. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby even suggested recently that the administration would support UNRWA even if a formal investigation finds that the 12 employees assisted Hamas's attack. "I do think it's important to remember that UNRWA does important work across the region, certainly in Gaza," he said last week on NBC's Today Show. "They have helped save thousands of lives and we shouldn't impugn the good work of a whole agency because of the terrible allegations lobbied against just a small number of their employees."

On this episode, Bethany and Luigi discuss the recent release of the "Twitter Files" – a collection of internal Twitter documents released publicly by new CEO Elon Musk that reveal the company's internal processes and policies for dealing with controversial content, including contentious public health information and political revelations.

Despite the potential significance of these documents, they have received relatively little coverage from the mainstream media. Our hosts debate and discuss potential reasons behind this, the possible implications at the intersection of social media, politics, and the mainstream media, as well as offer solutions to the underlying democratic issues at stake.

Daniel Raisbeck


Less than a year ago, I wrote of the almost certain regret that awaited the prosperous, urban, multiple‐​degree‐​holding types who voted for Gustavo Petro, Colombia's Chavista president. They thought they had supported a Nordic‐​style social democrat—failing to notice that they had helped to elect a tropical socialist who, given his past as a guerrilla group member and Hugo Chávez supporter, was also a potential autocrat. Caveat emptor (or rather suffragator) indeed. But I never thought that voter's remorse would set in so quickly. Or so extremely.
According to poll data from June 1, 2023, only 26 percent of Colombian citizens approved of Petro's performance as president. And this was before the scandal that shook the country's political scene last Sunday evening, when Semana magazine released a series of WhatsApp audio files sent by Armando Benedetti, Petro's former ambassador in Caracas, to Laura Sarabia, the president's former chief of staff.
Among the least bombastic revelations is Benedetti's claim that Alfonso Prada, Petro's former interior minister, "stole the whole ministry with his wife." This implies massive levels of corruption around Petro, who came to power with an anti‐​corruption agenda (quite cynically given his disreputable political alliances). Prada proceeded to sue Benedetti for libel.
Petro's dwindling number of supporters may dismiss this as a politician's petty slander against a rival in the cabinet. Far more concerning for them—and for Petro—is Benedetti's matter‐​of‐​fact assertion to Sarabia that he himself obtained COP $15 billion (around USD $3.58 million at today's exchange rate) for Petro's 2022 presidential campaign, during which he served as the former candidate's right‐​hand‐​man and main political handler. Petro's campaign did not officially report any donation nearly as large. Its declared funds consisted mostly a series of bank loans, which were meant to be paid with the "reimbursement" sum that the Colombian state guarantees to candidates for each vote received in an election.
In many countries, an insider's admission of how millions of undeclared dollars flowed into the president's campaign coffers would bring down the government. Alas, Colombia is not one of them. This is not due to a lack of unashamedly corrupt presidents; as I wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal, the opposite has been the case. Rather, since the 1950's, the Colombian elite's idiosyncratic approach to presidential corruption has followed the maxim, attributed to journalist Hernando Santos (1922–1999), that the trouble with overthrowing a president is that he may fall upon those doing the toppling.
Already in Petro's case, the three‐​member House of Representatives commission created to investigate Benedetti's statements includes two members of the president's own party. The enquiry will be a charade, which is a pity since the source of the undeclared campaign money is as important as the sum itself. In an interview, Benedetti told Semana that the money "did not come from entrepreneurs," meaning the legal business community. Suspicion has fallen on the Marxist guerrilla groups and other drug trafficking organizations, but also on the Venezuelan regime of Nicolás Maduro. Anonymous, the hacker group, claims that Maduro financed "part of the campaign of the current president of Colombia," but has not published evidence hitherto.
What is certain is that, in regional terms, the Maduro regime has been the principal beneficiary of Petro's election. To begin with, Colombia recognized Maduro's presidency after a three‐​and‐​a‐​half‐​year hiatus, and Petro himself has met Maduro four times since his inauguration. His government, which opposes any future hydrocarbon exploration in Colombia despite dwindling reserves, has promoted the idea of importing Venezuelan natural gas.
While Petro wages a political war against Colombia's key petroleum industry—crude oil has been the country's main legal export for decades—he lobbied President Joe Biden to end American sanctions against the Maduro regime. This would imply renewed Venezuelan oil exports to the U.S. market (even if socialism devastated Venezuela's oil industry well beyond immediate or even medium term repair). Petro's "shoot yourself in the foot / prosper‐​thy‐​neighbor" policy is devoid of any rationality. Unless, of course, Colombia's increasingly authoritarian president is somehow subject to the Venezuelan tyrant.
Petro's eco‐​fanatical crusade against the hydrocarbon industry is but one example of how his government is bent on destroying the few areas of the Colombian economy that are functional. Other examples include his plans to put the state in charge of centralized funding for the healthcare and pension systems, both of which are efficient—although certainly not perfect—thanks to private sector involvement and some degree of consumer choice. Where things are already problematic, Petro's policies would make them worse. For instance, he wants to make a rigid, overregulated labor market even less flexible and more hostile to businesses.
Then there is the matter of rising insecurity, an old problem that, until recently, appeared mostly solved, only to resurface dangerously in the last year. Under Petro, illegal armed groups have expanded their power as they launch constant, deadly attacks against the armed forces and police. It all brings to mind the dark era of the late 1990's, when Colombia was on the verge of becoming a failed state as it came under siege from the FARC guerrillas, which are still up in arms despite the much‐​touted "peace" agreement of 2016.
Usually, a crisis in government breeds economic instability. Under Colombia's current government, however, the opposite has been the case. Since the Benedetti scandal broke, the peso rallied to reach its highest value against the dollar since mid‐​2022, when Petro was about to win the presidential election. In October, two months after he took office, the peso reached an all‐​time low against the dollar. Amid the current political turmoil, forward‐​looking markets are anticipating the failure of Petro's legislative initiatives in health care, pensions, and labor law. Which is to say, there is speculation that Colombia's institutional framework has already survived Petro's statist onslaught. The weaker his position, the thinking goes, the less likely it is that non‐​leftist parties will lend him their support, which he needs to obtain congressional majorities.
I fear, however, that markets may be getting ahead of themselves. The Colombian congress is minimally ideological and highly transactional. There is still a good chance that, issue by issue, Petro's government can negotiate just enough votes to have his "reforms" approved, in which case only the courts will stand in the way of his agenda.
Not that Petro is respectful of any check or balance. This week, he propounded the theory that, since he was elected, his government represents "the will of the people," meaning that any opposition to his political project—including from the news media—is part of an illegitimate, "soft coup." The onslaught, in other words, is far from over.
In my view, the worst part about Petro's election victory is that, at this time last year, Colombia was in need of radical reforms. Above all, a chronically sluggish economy required budget discipline, public spending cuts, drastic debt reduction, a strong currency (ideally through dollarization), far lower taxes, labor market deregulation, subsoil privatization, school choice, and an end to non‐​tariff barriers. By electing Petro, however, voters decided to do precisely the opposite on all fronts. As warned, most already regret it.

We revisit our 2017 Axe Files episode with Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks, who joins David to talk about how he parlayed an early love of drama into a career, his most memorable roles, sexual harassment scandals in Hollywood, Trump's relationship with the media, and more.
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Explosive assassination claims made over seven weeks ago by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have thrust India-Canada relations into crisis. Despite the two countries' shared position on the Israel-Hamas war and caution by Canada's key allies, the downward spiral between Ottawa and New Delhi has continued unabated.Trudeau accused the Indian government in September of complicity in the killing of prominent Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil. Nijjar, an outspoken proponent of the Khalistan separatist movement for the establishment of an independent state in India's northern Punjab region, was previously labeled a "terrorist" by Indian authorities. The government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi denounced Trudeau's allegations as "absurd and motivated," reiterating its long-standing grievances over what it describes as Canada's continued sheltering of Khalistani terrorists and extremists.The bombshell allegations have brought the India-Canada relationship to what experts have described as its lowest point ever. A massive trade deal that both sides hoped would be inked by the end of 2023 has been frozen indefinitely. Canada responded by expelling Indian diplomat Pavan Kumar Rai, prompting India's expulsion of a Canadian diplomat in a mirror response. New Delhi took the diplomatic tit-for-tat game to a new level in October, reportedly ordering Canada to recall over half —41 of 62 — of its diplomats in India. Trudeau neither confirmed the expulsions nor suggested that Canada is planning a proportionate response. "Obviously, we are going through an extremely challenging time with India right now, but that's why it is so important for us to have diplomats on the ground working with the Indian government and there to support Canadians and Canadian families," he said, according to AP. Trudeau's recent attempts to contain, if not to dial down, tensions with India come amid growing apprehensions by Canada's key allies. The Biden administration has made it a foreign policy priority to court India as a critical regional counterweight to China. The White House reportedly privately believes Canada's assassination claims, but worries that the dispute may spill over into a more serious confrontation with deleterious consequences for its Indo-Pacific strategy. "When Washington has to decide between New Delhi and Ottawa, given the current global geopolitical situation, it's going to side with New Delhi," Andrew Latham, Professor of International Relations and Political Theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy, told RS. The Trudeau government faces substantial domestic pressure as it navigates the Nijjar incident, Latham observed. "I think, in one sense, both sides would like this to go away because the largest diaspora in Canada is Indian. The Trudeau government is no position to alienate the large Sikh community in and around Vancouver and in and around Toronto," he said, highlighting the salience of electoral politics to Trudeau's thinking. "And then you factor into that the fact that right now, it [Trudeau's Liberal Party] is in a coalition government, more or less, with the New Democratic Party which is headed by Jagmeet Singh, who is also a Sikh. You can see that there is some partisan electoral dynamic at work here which is pushing the Trudeau government not to let this issue go away," Latham added.Singh, who was denied a visa by India in 2013 reportedly over his statements on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in India, has taken a more strident stance on the Nijjar killing than Trudeau himself. "I will leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of justice, including holding Narendra Modi accountable," he wrote on social media.The Nijjar scandal was quickly overtaken, at least in international media headlines, by the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war after October 7. A vast swathe of the global south has either criticized Israel or offered equivocal messages lamenting the loss of life and urging an end to hostilities. Modi, by stark contrast, has taken a robust pro-Israel position much closer to the views of Canadian and most Western leaders. "Deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel. Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour," the Indian Prime Minister wrote on the X social media platform X following the October 7 Hamas attacks. India also abstained from a Oct. 27 vote in the UN General Assembly which called for a " humanitarian truce" in Gaza. The measure was opposed by the U.S. and Israel and 12 other countries. The Modi government took such a stance partly because it believes it is confronted with similar types of threats on its homeland, experts say. India "faces a number of secessionist threats and the prospect of, broadly framed, Islamic terrorism, which it likens to what Israel is facing. India and Israel have had a good relationship for a while and this is a continuation of it," Latham noted. Yet their shared pro-Israel position has proven not to be a mitigating factor in the cratering relations between Ottawa and New Delhi. "The old adage, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, actually doesn't work here. I don't think their common antipathy towards Hamas is sufficient to bridge the differences," said Latham. "Think about what's at stake for the Canadian government: some foreign government, if this is all true, sent their agents into Canada to assassinate a Canadian citizen expressing views that are protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And on the Modi side, here is the parallel: Israel has a long history of assassinating people beyond [Israel's borders] who are enemies of the state of Israel, Modi is simply doing that," Latham said. "I think that, over time, this will abate, but in the short to medium term, it's just too raw at the moment, and not even this common position around Israel is sufficient to calm tempers."Though there are no signs of reconciliation anywhere on the horizon, both sides — as well as the deeply influential external stakeholder that is the Biden administration — have at least an implicit interest in ensuring that the Canada-India confrontation does not careen down the path of uncontrollable escalation.Time will tell if that will be enough to prevent lasting damage to the bilateral relationship.

The Biden White House is reportedly trying to rein in the U.S. ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, whose social media trolling of the Chinese government in recent weeks has become increasingly combative. According to NBC News, Biden aides have asked Emanuel to stop mocking Xi Jinping online over China's economic woes and the removal of several high-profile officials. As one anonymous White House official drily put it, the tweets were "not in keeping with the message coming out of this building." Emanuel's sarcastic criticism of the Chinese government and Xi has predictably irritated Beijing, and that has been undermining the administration's efforts to stabilize the deteriorating U.S.-Chinese relationship. As one administration official said, "It just fights what we are doing there in the region." A former administration official quoted in the report was blunter: "They're trying to calm things down and to have the ambassador to Japan attack the Chinese? It's stupid."Emanuel was always a curious choice for a prominent diplomatic post, given his record as a crude, knife-fighting political operative, but in recent weeks he outdid himself with his trolling comments about China. When the then-defense minister, Li Shangfu, had not been seen in public for several weeks, Emanuel tweeted a mocking reference to Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" as he called attention to the growing list of top Chinese officials removed from their positions over the last few months. This briefly earned the ambassador some favorable coverage back home, including a report in The Wall Street Journal last week that billed him as a "warrior diplomat," but like the so-called wolf warrior tactics that Emanuel has been imitating it ended up backfiring on him.The ambassador's social media antics have done nothing to advance U.S. interests, and it is hard to see how it benefits Japan or the U.S.-Japanese relationship to have our ambassador in Tokyo flinging insults at a neighboring country. As the NBC News report said, a "second administration official said for Emanuel to make these comments makes no sense and does not advance U.S. strategic goals with China or with the Asia-Pacific region." The U.S. doesn't send its ambassadors abroad so that they can play at being the ugly American for online clout, but lately that seems to be what Emanuel thinks his job is. It was a mistake to appoint Emanuel as an ambassador, and it was even worse to send him to a region where tensions are already high enough without having a top U.S. official throwing rhetorical bombs every week. Diplomats don't have to be quiet or boring, but they do need to be professional and responsible in what they say because they aren't just speaking for themselves. The White House is right to get Emanuel back in line. It remains to be seen if he will stay there. Emanuel's public attacks on China illustrate the limited utility of aggressive, hawkish posturing. Mocking Xi and the Chinese government over their current difficulties is juvenile at best, and to the extent that it contributes to further mistrust and hostility it can have real consequences for the bilateral relationship that can undercut U.S. policies and cause damage to U.S. and allied interests. While Emanuel may not take his responsibility seriously, representing the U.S. overseas is not a game. Especially when it concerns powerful rival states, diplomats need to take extra care in what they say, how they say it, and where they say it. They certainly shouldn't be freelancing with pointed public attacks on the rival's leadership because it amuses them.Making playground taunts of foreign leaders may seem harmless enough, but such slights help to erode goodwill between governments and provide fodder to hardliners in the other country that thrive on contempt and anger. Emanuel may imagine that he is boldly "calling out" the Chinese government for its failures, but it doesn't hurt their government to have an obnoxious foreign diplomat attacking them in public. If anything, it is useful to their propagandists to have someone like Emanuel as a foil. All that it does it make the work of real U.S. diplomats that much harder, and ultimately that means that the U.S. ends up absorbing higher costs down the road.When U.S. diplomacy is successful, it secures U.S. interests in other parts of the world at the lowest possible cost. It can be challenging and sometimes dangerous work, and it is almost never glamorous, but when it is done right it can achieve far more through negotiation and compromise than can be achieved by force, threats, and denunciations. Emanuel is the product of a political culture that prizes the latter and hates the former, and so it isn't surprising that he is not suited at all to the task of being a diplomat. One of the weaknesses of U.S. diplomacy is the selection of unqualified political appointees for ambassadorial roles. No other major government hands out ambassadorial posts on the basis of political cronyism and donations. As a result, they typically avoid the embarrassments and scandals that come from being represented by people that have no training or aptitude for diplomatic work. There may sometimes be some value in having political allies of the president in a foreign capital, but most of the time it does little to help advance U.S. interests. In some cases, it can work against them. It is good that the Biden administration is trying to get one of its loose cannons under control, but it would be much better if we had a system in which only career diplomats served as our ambassadors in every country.There is a legitimate role for criticism of other governments in the practice of U.S. diplomacy, but it has to be part of a coordinated policy aimed at securing real benefits for the American people. Trolling the Chinese leadership over their internal problems just antagonizes their government and achieves nothing of value. Before sounding off in public, an ambassador or any other U.S. official needs to ask what purpose is being served by the criticism and whether that is the smartest way to respond. Does a public attack bring the U.S. closer to advancing its interests, or does it create an additional obstacle that makes that more difficult? Obviously, Emanuel didn't bother to ask those questions.

The Biden administration recently established a new system for responding to incidents in which a U.S. arms recipient is suspected of using American-made weapons to injure or kill civilians. The policy represents the first systematic approach to monitoring when and where U.S. arms sales cause civilian casualties and aligns well with the Biden administration's Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) policy. But an executive order is not enough to durably improve oversight of U.S. arms transfers. Congress should codify the new system into law, ensuring that it receives the resources and attention it needs to make an impact and making it impossible for a future president to end the program on a whim. Losing this policy, or otherwise allowing it to languish, would mean eliminating the first process for tracking and punishing those who harm civilians with U.S. weapons. Having such a system in place is important because the United States itself has a terrible track record of harming civilians. And until now, the government did not appear to care about how many more were harmed by U.S. weapons in the hands of others.The policy, known as Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance (CHIRG), compels State Department officials to investigate and potentially penalize reported abuses of U.S. weapons abroad. Under this system, U.S. government officials will examine allegations of abuse reported by diplomatic or intelligence officials, the United Nations, international media, or civil society groups. If investigators deem a report valid, they will recommend a course of action that could include intensifying military training and education to shore up issues, curbing future arms sales until the recipient addresses its human rights problems, or other authorized diplomatic responses.There are multiple security and humanitarian reasons to institutionalize such a policy. For example, there is evidence that U.S. national security is threatened when it sends arms to nations that frequently violate human rights. These risks include American-made weapons threatening U.S. troops, strengthening relations between autocrats and terrorist or criminal groups, and preventing less risky and strategically important partners like Taiwan from getting the weapons that they need.The Cato Institute's 2022 Arms Sales Risk Index analyzes the risks presented by every U.S. weapons recipient. While this year's index shows that the Biden administration has thus far sold weapons to a less risky portfolio of clients than its two most recent predecessors, the White House continues to dole out significant numbers of weapons to some of the world's riskiest countries, like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt.Furthermore, the CHIRG allows the administration to finally put actions to its words. Biden's CAT policy claims that the United States will strive to "prevent arms transfers that risk facilitating or otherwise contributing to violations of human rights or international humanitarian law." Nonetheless, the White House continues approving massive weapons sales to some of the worst human rights abusers, including a recent deal to give 31 advanced drones to India despite concerns about the actions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A new policy analyzing civilian harm will at least force U.S. officials to confront the consequences of their decisions.In fact, the CHIRG should reduce the risk of civilian casualties from problematic clients. The new system would theoretically impose some degree of punishment — including potentially delaying or ending weapons transfers — against countries like Saudi Arabia if, for example, Riyadh continues to use U.S. weapons to intentionally target civilians in Yemen.Nonetheless, the CHIRG does contain potential pitfalls, similar to those found in the Leahy Laws. The Leahy Laws focus on preventing the president from providing U.S. security assistance to military units that have committed a gross violation of human rights. This vetting process often lacks any real bite because there is little guidance as to how to document instances of human rights abuses, vague definitions of what constitutes "civilian harm," a reporting system that is difficult to use, and a lack of transparency. The CHIRG will likely face similar problems. Moreover, the CHIRG does not currently specify the exact consequences of violations, nor the resources required to undertake such an initiative.Despite the problems associated with the Leahy Laws, Congress did codify them after more than a decade of yearly reauthorizations. This means that, to end the Leahy Laws, a president would need Congress to pass new legislation — no small feat in a gridlocked legislature.The lack of codification for the CHIRG means that, at any point, a presidential administration can undo this policy. Absent congressional action to codify the CHIRG, it will likely be undone by a future administration that wants to sell more weapons to risky countries like Saudi Arabia.Fortunately, Congress can codify this legislation. In fact, recent research shows that Congress has a good opportunity of successfully doing so in the near future. Even the Leahy Laws — named for democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, initially passed under President Bill Clinton, and codified under President Barack Obama — passed with the support of a Republican-controlled Congress. The key was framing the legislation as a way to publicly restrict Clinton's foreign policy authority following arms transfer scandals in Colombia. The timing is also ripe to codify the CHIRG according to new findings about how lawmakers develop foreign policy, which show that the legislature tends to pass measures to restrict presidential authority abroad during bipartisan congresses.The CHIRG is a positive step forward for reducing risk in arms sales, but without congressional codification to clarify the ambiguities, it will create only moderate improvements — like the Leahy Laws — until a new president decides to end the policy.

On March 8, a Manhattan federal court found Juan Orlando Hernández, president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022, guilty of conspiracy to import large amounts of cocaine into the United States over nearly two decades. Mainstream U.S. media generally framed the ex-president's trial and conviction as a triumph of justice, a service rendered by the impartial U.S. justice system to the people of Honduras.The great majority of such accounts, however, ignored and obscured context crucial for understanding Hernández's rise and rule; in particular, how Washington contributed to both. Though the mainstream narrative around the ex-president rightly connects his tenure in office with massive emigration from Honduras, it has elided the degree to which U.S. influence enabled Hernández's career and thus partially drove the migration that arose in response. For roughly two centuries, Honduras, the original "banana republic," has suffered a deeply unequal relationship with the far more powerful United States. One of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, Honduras and its people have endured frequent American military interventions, U.S.-backed coups, and a corrupt, rapacious local oligarchy closely tied to U.S. corporate interests.Despite Hernández's ultimate conviction on U.S. soil, he served Washington for many years as a loyal client. The single most important event in the ex-president's political career was a 2009 coup, which overthrew center-left president Manuel Zelaya (whose wife, Xiomara Castro, won election in 2021 and currently occupies the presidency). Zelaya raised the minimum wage, subsidized small farmers, and authorized the morning-after pill, infuriating the country's business elite and, in the last case, ultra-conservative religious leaders. Moreover, to Washington's consternation, he made overtures toward Hugo Chavez's socialist Venezuela and sought to convert a crucial U.S. airbase entirely to civilian use.Joint action by Honduras' military and judiciary — in a manner the U.S. ambassador called "clearly illegal" and "totally illegitimate" at the time — forced Zelaya to pay for these sins in late June 2009. While the White House's reaction to the coup initially appeared confused, Washington soon recovered its footing. Even as huge protests raged, the Obama administration played a key role in ultimately compelling Honduras' people and the region's governments to acquiesce to the regime change as a fait accompli. Despite widespread repression by the post-coup de facto government, accounts of fraud, and the condemnation of many countries and international organizations (including the normally deferential Organization of American States), U.S.-endorsed elections in November 2009 received Washington's imprimatur. In her memoirs (the passage excised from the book's paperback edition with no explanation), then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explained that the U.S. sought to "render the question of Zelaya moot and give the Honduran people a chance to choose their own future."It was in this context that Hernández catapulted into power. After Porfirio Lobo won the 2009 presidential race, Hernández became President of the National Congress as a member of Lobo's National Party — an institution historically closely linked to U.S. agribusiness. Lobo was Hernández's mentor and groomed his protege to succeed him. But while Hernández enjoyed success, the coup's consequences constituted disaster for ordinary Hondurans.Political violence and repression became routine. The murder rate, much of it due to cartel-related gang violence, soared — it was the world's highest for three years running. As the economic situation also deteriorated, and Lobo and his son allied with major narcotics syndicates, a huge surge of emigration swelled out of Honduras, with desperate citizens flooding northward. The total number of Hondurans apprehended at the U.S. border exploded — from less than 25,000 in 2009 to nearly 100,000 in 2014 — reaching 250,000 by 2020. In Washington's eyes, however, such concerns took a back seat to longstanding strategic needs: above all, Honduras' openness to foreign investment and its role as a base for American military power. And, as head of the National Congress, Hernandez was seen as particularly amenable to U.S. desires. "The State Department loved Hernandez," according to Dana Frank, an expert on Honduras at UC Santa Cruz. As Lobo's heir apparent, "he was young and could stay in power for a long time." Frank cites a 2010 cable from the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa asserting that "He has consistently supported U.S. interests."The depth of American support for Hernández became clear after his 2013 election to the presidency. Despite credible reports of fraud, his National Party's control over the counting process, and a wave of threats and sometimes lethal violence against opposition candidates and activists during the campaign, the State Department commended the election as "transparent, free, and fair." In 2015, a major corruption scandal centered on the misappropriation of funds from Honduras' Social Security Institute exploded, prompting unprecedented popular demonstrations against Hernandez and calling for his resignation, "There was a real sense that Hernández could fall," according to Alexander Main, a Latin America expert at the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. Fortunately for Hernández, however, the U.S. swooped in, helping to defuse the unrest by prodding the OAS to organize a local anti-corruption body known as MACCIH. In that same year, according to Frank, Washington gave an "official green light" to a "completely criminal" power grab by Hernández whereby his hand-picked Supreme Court ruled that he was eligible to run for a second term in clear violation of Honduras' constitution. Washington's complacent reaction — "It is up to the Honduran people to determine their political future" — stood in remarkable contrast to 2009, when Zelaya's mere suggestion that the constitution might be amended to permit a second term served as the pretext for the coup that the U.S. subsequently legitimized. In Hernández's 2017 reelection bid, the fraud was so blatant and widespread that even the generally conservative OAS declared the incumbent's victory an example of "extreme statistical improbability" and called for new elections. The State Department, however, stood by Hernández, prodding Mexico and other OAS members to recognize the results, even as security forces suppressed massive and prolonged protests with live ammunition.Indeed, U.S. training and funding also proved crucial in the creation of the brutal special operations units Hernández's government used to terrorize opposition and environmental activists. Particularly significant in the military sphere was the role of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), the American combatant command responsible for Latin America. Hernández was a particular favorite of John Kelly, SOUTHCOM's head during Obama's second term (and then White House chief of staff for Donald Trump), who, as Dana Frank noted, once referred to the convicted drug trafficker as a "great guy" and "good friend."Considering the U.S. relationship with Hernández, it is perhaps unsurprising that U.S. officials seemingly turned a blind eye to his deep involvement in narcotics trafficking. As both Hernández's recent trial — during which a witness claimed Hernandez had privately vowed to "stuff drugs up the noses of the gringos" — and that of his brother in 2019 showed, the drug trade's reach into the Honduran government was unmistakable, with numerous high-ranking security officials repeatedly implicated. CEPR's Main argues that it was "highly unlikely American officials were unaware" of Hernández's criminality. Indeed, as a document from his brother's trial revealed, the DEA began investigating the ex-president as early as 2013. As noted in Hernández's trial, just weeks after his inauguration in 2014, the agency reportedly obtained video evidence indicating his involvement with major drug traffickers. Even after his brother's 2019 conviction, when it became apparent that millions of dollars in drug money helped underwrite Hernández's political career, President Donald Trump publicly praised him for "working with the United States very closely" and for his help in "stopping drugs at a level that has never happened."Given all this, the U.S. media's failure to probe the influence of American policy on Hernández's career begins to look less like an anomalous oversight and more like a manifestation of structural dynamics that tend to reinforce the notion of American innocence. We can see the same logic apply to the frenzied media accounts detailing "caravans" of Central American migrants headed to the U.S. While mainstream news outlets rightly note the relationship between Hernández's presidency and increased migration from Honduras, they nevertheless fail to connect the two to the impact of U.S. policymaking. Without Washington's complicity and assistance, Hernandez might have spent 2014 to 2022 in prison, rather than the presidency. Unfortunately, it was the Honduran people who paid the price.