This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute. 

The alleged betrayal of their country by two former U.S. intelligence officers underscores how dangerous an adversary is Communist China.

The problem is not simply that Chinese espionage agents are evidently doing successfully in the United States what spies do the world over. They recruit turncoats – using bribes, sex, blackmail and other techniques – to obtain access to foreigners’ state secrets.

What is especially worrying, however, about the cases of Kevin Mallory and Ron Hanson, two veterans of the Defense Intelligence Agency, is that the Chinese may have identified them using the immense trove of sensitive data about U.S. government employees that Beijing is believed to have hacked from the Office of Personnel Management.   

If so, they are likely not to be the last Americans targeted employing such information – especially our own spies, service members, defense contractors and others with security clearances. 

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Donald Trump ran for president with a promise that “the support networks for Radical Islam in this country will be stripped out and removed, one by one.” This pledge was part of a larger, strategic course-correction that strongly resonated with many millions of Americans.

Last night, Mr. Trump made an important, if symbolic, step towards implementing his campaign commitment.  He hosted a White House iftar dinner with Muslims that, for the first time since 9/11, appears not to have been populated by representatives of the support networks for Radical Islam in this country.

Instead, groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations that was founded by Hamas, were reduced to protesting from across the street. Let’s hope this is the first step towards designating the Muslim Brotherhood as the terrorist organization it is – and ending its network’s subversive radicalization in our communities.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

On Monday, Vice President Mike Pence commendably reaffirmed the United States’ solidarity with the long-suffering people of Venezuela. He called on the other nations of the Western hemisphere to do the same at a meeting Tuesday of the Organization of American States by voting “to expel the Maduro dictatorship” from that body. 

In the event, a sufficient number of the OAS membership agreed to a resolution that clears the way for the ultimate expulsion of Nicholas Madura’s despotic Venezuelan regime, but not enough actually to do it.

Mr. Pence promised American leadership to end the escalating humanitarian crisis in Venezuela and the exodus it is precipitating, with destabilizing effects across the region.  That leadership must now take the form of a decisive U.S. embargo on oil purchases from Venezuela and on the sale of gasoline to Maduro and his thugocracy. 

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met yesterday with his Turkish counterpart, who would have us believe Turkey is still a U.S. ally.  In fact, it is no more. 

That’s a serious problem given Turkey’s strategic location, its membership in NATO, its control of an important U.S. base at Incirlik, and its access to sensitive American intelligence and technology.  And, that problem is growing daily as Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan increasingly aligns his rabidly Sharia-supremacist government with our adversaries like Russia, Iran and China. 

The United States can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to Erdogan’s hostility and even threats to us, our allies and interests.  Unless and until that permanently ends, among other responses, we cannot deem Turkey a reliable recipient of our frontline F-35 fighters. 

Learn more by reading Turkey: Ally No More for free at SecureFreedom.org.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

In an official Washington said to be bereft of bipartisanship, there’s a prominent exception.  Many House Democrats and Republicans seem to be firmly in agreement that nothing should come of one of the most potentially explosive Capitol Hill scandals in memory.

Ace Daily Caller investigator Luke Roziak has documented for over a year that one-in-five Democratic Members of Congress relied on deeply problematic Pakistani expatriates for their official information technology services.  But where Mr. Roziak has exposed one ominous facet of this story after another, the Capitol Police and FBI seem determined to bury, rather than prosecute, numerous criminal and possibly counter-intelligence charges.

Speaker Paul Ryan has been unwilling to allow hearings into the damage done by the three Awan brothers and their associates.  As the leadership race to replace him gets underway, any candidate who agrees should be considered disqualified.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

In a world rocked by ominous threats from the South China Sea and the Korean peninsula to the Persian Gulf and an increasingly Islamized Europe, it’s easy to overlook one in our own front-yard: the unfolding catastrophe in Venezuela.

Thanks to the sustained socialist malfeasance of Hugo Chavez and his incompetent successor, Nicolas Maduro, a nation with the world’s largest oil reserves has been reduced to a state where its people are literally starving. Many are fleeing to neighboring nations where they are an increasingly destabilizing and unwelcome force.

So are the narco-traffickers and the hostile foreign powers that now operate with impunity in – and from – Venezuela.

Before this disaster metastasizes further, freedom-loving nations must intervene. The place to start is with an embargo on the despotic Venezuelan regime’s exports of crude oil and imports of gasoline and other refined products.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

President Trump has lately been making a series of extraordinarily important improvements to his defense and foreign policy team.  National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are among the most obvious. 

But to be effective, such leaders need a cast of highly capable subordinates.  Fortunately, last week Amb. Bolton brought aboard one  tested and proven to be among the best – a career intelligence professional named Fred Fleitz – to serve in key roles as the National Security Council’s Chief of Staff and Executive Secretary.

The increasingly shrill, and even unhinged, attacks currently being mounted on Mr. Fleitz by the Radical Left, Sharia-supremacists and their media echo chamber speak volumes about their fear that he’ll really help Mr. Trump succeed. Those of us privileged to have worked with Fred at the Center for Security Policy expect from him nothing less. 

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday put a spotlight on his personal commitment and that of the Trump administration to the cause of religious freedom. His department released a new report documenting the plight of people around the world persecuted for their faith.

And, underscoring his determination not simply to illuminate, but to oppose such repression, Mr. Pompeo unveiled an upcoming summit for that purpose with like-minded foreign ministers.

That can be a welcome opportunity to showcase the problem. To be of enduring value, however, it must translate into accountability and costs for those responsible.

Specifically, Mr. Pompeo’s religious freedom ministerial has to address the fact that those being most horrifically oppressed for their faith worldwide are Christians.  Some 215 million of them are being heavily persecuted. That must end.

This is Frank Gaffney. Find out how you can help at SavethePersecutedChristians.org.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Americans transfixed lately by plucky Winston Churchill and the UK’s newly expanded royal family may be shocked to learn that our closest European ally is submitting to Sharia-supremacism. 

One of the most appalling manifestations of this capitulation is the phenomenon of so-called “grooming gangs.” Actually, these groups of mostly South Asian men enslave and serially rape British women and girls – often with the knowledge of, but unhindered by, the authorities. 

The UK’s media rarely cover this outrage, either because of government restrictions or self-censorship.  And last week, another plucky Brit named Tommy Robinson, who fearlessly challenges Sharia-supremacism, was thrown in jail for 13 months – merely for reporting on the trial of one such grooming gang.  He risks being murdered there.

Britain must stand up for freedom or inevitably succumb to the jihadists’ Sharia.  The place to start is by freeing Tommy Robinson.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute. 

The mask of Kim Jong-un’s charm offensive has slipped lately, exposing anew his dynasty’s default setting of thuggish bullying.  In this instance, that involved virulent denunciations of senior U.S. officials and renewed warnings of nuclear war. 

But the North Korean tyrant finally faces an American president who is not going to tolerate such behavior.  President Trump’s response might be called “applied Peace through Strength.”

The West’s past practice has been to grovel when the Kims act this way, sometimes even rewarding them for doing so. By contrast, Donald Trump cancelled the U.S.-North Korea summit planned for June 12th.

Within hours, Kim Jong-un was trying to be charming again, expressing his desire to talk anytime, anywhere.  President Trump’s right to insist that, for such a conversation to be worthwhile, its agreed purpose must be the complete, prompt and verifiable denuclearization of Kim’s regime.

This is Frank Gaffney.