Janine Jackson: Difficult as it is to believe, there are many people for whom Elliott Abrams’ appointment as Donald Trump’s special envoy to Venezuela is their first introduction to the man a recent Washington Post headline described as “trailed by mistrust.”
Abrams’ public record in Latin America and elsewhere, as an official under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, ought to be central in any reporting on his current Venezuelan adventure. But it only really got on media’s front burner when Abrams’ was confronted with it by Rep. Ilhan Omar in a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting, an exchange then subsumed in media’s “Hot Controversy of the Day” framework.
Joining us now today to talk about some of Elliott Abrams’ keenly relevant and not-that-old history, is Jon Schwarz. Contributor to many outlets, he now writes for the Intercept. He joins us now by phone from Brooklyn. Welcome to CounterSpin, Jon Schwarz.
Jon Schwarz: Thank you so much for having me on to talk about this. It’s an extremely grim story, but also extremely important.
After the exchange with Representative Omar, Elliott Abrams sent a message to the Washington Post that described his role in the Reagan administration, saying, “It’s a remarkable record of support for Latin democracy, of which Representative Omar is obviously unaware and in which she is uninterested.” And he added, “That was clear from her conduct, which constituted attacking rather than questioning a witness.”
The idea that Omar was speaking from ignorance—set aside her purported incivility as the conduct with which we should be concerned—but the idea that she was factually wrong, that…