Thi
You read it as I meant a take over of the government. It was not. That was in your head. I'm sorry you misunderstood. In context of what we were talking about, my statement stands true; No incoming administration has taken over diplomacy before swearing in of a new President.
A president-elect has no official power. Even fox news admits to that
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/200...s-office-president-elect-holds-authority.html
As far as editing my post goes, I did so because without further clarity, I knew your vindictiveness would embody itself in the form of the ultimate warrior(RIP), running wild!
It appears I still did not make it clear enough. I did not try to hide that I edited the post; merely clarify exactly what I was saying. Any private citizen making diplomatic efforts abroad is guilty of violating the Logan act. No one has been indicted on that since the 1800's because it's unanimously accepted poor form and bad practice.
Dangerous and careless, these acts not only undermine a sitting President's administration, but also depreciates the authority of the office of the POTUS internationally well into the new administration, if not further. In this scenario, one sitting administration placed sanctions on Russia for interfering in our election. The act of placing those sanctions was completely legal and acceptable. Don't try to say they didn't. It's not just our intelligence communities that agree, but many abroad too. It's been reported that the new administration looked at lifting those sanctions in the first few days. Reported in June that they attempted to lift those sanctions in secret in June.
Considerations as the current scenario played out:
What kind of message does that send to Russia? The rest of the world? Doesn't that undermine our power at large? Who's next to not care if the U.S. sanctions, they're not really gonna do anything about it. China? Go ahead... influence our elections. The person you pick to win is just gonna ignore/try to lift those sanctions anyway. No, really! The NOT-US Ambassador said so just now.
Considerations in any scenario:
You're the President. You sanction a country(we'll say Pakistan) for maybe mass manufacture of unregulated aerosal carfentanil; which is an elephant analgesic that can and has been used as a chemical agent(Moscow theater). There is no safe dosage of carfentanil for in humans. We know this happened because the intelligence community(national and international) intercepts conversations between the Pakistani government and Columbia. After that's announced, the incoming president tells his man to talk at the Columbian ambassador, and tells him "Yeah, but we don't believe/don't care. Once our boy gets in, it's not going to matter".
What's the current administration supposed to do here? Let them continue to peddle unregulated chemicals that are being sold weapon ready? Wait another month to let the incoming President deal with it, while it slithers it's way through Latin America and into our borders? Remember; the incoming president either doesn't believe it, or doesn't care. You now have a pressing matter, whether it's being sold as chemical weapons abroad, or very dangerous opiates internally.
Making it simpler:
You score a contract for.. whatever it is you do. It ends in 3 months. You get word of your replacement. You set aside time to train him. You see that there's something that needs your attention immediately, and you handle it. Your replacement, who has not started yet and not received training on how to address these issues, or even what these issues are, addresses the situation in a dismissive manner.
This is NOT as simple as "Hey, we're coming in and we're gonna make it ok". Any number of leadership issues can occur here. If you don't see the extreme issue you're stupid. If you don't see the subtle issues here, you probably should just shut up. This slope is entirely too slippery to have cowboys coming in doing what they think is right.