Trump is going to need a bigger wall

by J Michael Waller / Town Hall / December 6, 2017

President Donald Trump is going to have to build a bigger wall on the border with Mexico, not because of the Mexicans, but because of the Obama holdovers he has kept in place.

Venezuela is on the verge of unleashing a major refugee crisis, as its corrupt regime continues its slow-motion collapse. Guatemala, which shares most of Mexico’s southern border and is the main land bridge for illegal immigration from Central and South America into the United States, is a mess thanks to the ongoing coup d’état that the Obama administration set in motion.

Multiple congressional sources confirm that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson may name the activist Obama diplomat who destabilized Guatemala to run the American Embassy in Venezuela.

The career diplomat, Todd Robinson, couldn’t be a more wrongful pick. As U.S. envoy from 2014 to last October, Robinson meddled in Guatemala’s democratic process to stack the highest courts against pro-U.S. President Jimmy Morales, a key ally against narcotics trafficking in the region.

Many of Robinson’s picks for top court justices were militant lawyers tied to Cuban-backed extremist groups. Those justices have begun to shut down a billion-dollar Canadian-American investment that was on the verge of providing thousands of new Guatemalan jobs.

Guatemala’s peculiar constitutional system requires the president to obey orders from the highest courts – even politically motivated orders to fire government officials. Guatemala is a fairly conservative country and small Cuban-backed groups stand little chance of gaining power in a democratic vote, but they can take over Guatemala if they can take over the courts.

Multiple senior Guatemalan officials and political figures have provided evidence to show Robinson’s direct involvement in fomenting a judicial revolution. The U.S. ambassador openly supported grassroots community organizers from below—many funded by the European Union and billionaire George Soros. From above, in a political pincer move, Robinson twisted arms to pressure Guatemalan lawmakers to confirm militant lawyers as justices on the supreme court and constitutional court. President Morales and his cabinet have been forced to bow to the radical lawyers now dominating the top courts.

Robinson has already seriously damaged at least one America-based business. Tahoe Resources, a Canadian firm operating from Nevada, invested a billion dollars in Guatemala to open Escobal, one of the world’s largest and most high-tech silver mines. Robinson actively pressured Guatemalan politicians to appoint a judge he knew would be especially sympathetic to anti-mining activists. His pet Guatemalan judge is now set to make a final decision in the lawsuit against the mine.

President Donald Trump’s America-first strategy is supposed to re-jig the State Department to adopt practices more friendly to U.S. businesses worldwide. That reform was what Trump named Tillerson to execute. Until now, it seemed that Robinson had been undermining Tillerson’s reform attempts. But with word of Robinson being considered to run the American embassy in Venezuela, it appears that the activist diplomat remains in Tillerson’s favor.

This could be due in part to National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster’s retention of an Obama holdover to run Latin America policy for the Trump White House. Obama’s deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes hired Fernando Cutz, who earned a graduate degree from the Clinton School of Public Service out of the Clinton Presidential Library, to run Latin America on the NSC staff.

Cutz helped Obama normalize relations with Cuba, while demanding nothing in return from the Communist regime. He was at the heart of Obama’s futile policy toward Venezuela, where Cuban security personnel continue to prop up the regime. And Cutz was the White House point man as Robinson empowered Marxist community organizers and lawyers in Guatemala to destabilize a friendly government and shut down the billion-dollar mining venture of an American-based company.

Tolerating Cuban subversion. Watching Venezuela simmer into a refugee catastrophe. Aiding Cuban-backed movements to destabilize the economy and government of Guatemala on Mexico’s southern border. All of these outcomes are the fruits of the policies of Obama appointees like Robinson and Cutz who continue to operate in the name of Donald Trump.

Robinson has not respond to repeated inquiries for this commentary.

These are the reasons why Trump is going to need to build a bigger wall.

For the original Town Hall article, click here.