Back in October of 2019, a new position was created by Donald Trump to serve as a special assistant to his office. Trump selected Richard Grenell as the “Special Presidential Envoy for Serbia and Kosovo Peace Negotiations. It was one of three jobs that Trump gave Grenell, and at one point he was in all three at once. Grenell was also Ambassador to Germany as well as the Acting Director of National Intelligence.

Ric was a busy guy.

Although the National Intelligence position and of course the ambassadorship still exist, the envoy job has been eliminated. Ric Grenell’s role ended the day after Joe Biden was inaugurated.

Don’t tell Donald Trump that, though. Thursday morning, the ex-president issued a statement saying he had dispatched Grenell to the border of Serbia and Kosovo to “highlight” an agreement between the two countries during his tenure as president.

NY Mag reporter David Freedlander tweeted:

The former president has an envoy ambassador and is conducting foreign policy pic.twitter.com/m60Wkl9gU1

— David Freedlander (@freedlander) November 11, 2021

Now, if a toddler wants to be king of the playground, sometimes there’s no harm in allowing it. As long as he’s not hurting anyone, it’s okay for him to think he’s important.

But it may be illegal for Grenell to be there if he’s actually doing anything Trump wants. There’s a law from more than 200 years ago — literally right after the Constitution itself — that prohibits regular old citizens like Ric Grenell from “corresponding with” a foreign country with whom the US has a dispute.

It can hardly be overlooked that the United States has bombed both countries, regardless of the status of our relations now. But at least in Serbia, not even a decade has passed since officials there decried US influence in their elections.

Even if Grenell is not there “corresponding” with either country and is simply doing some kind of tour urging citizens to thank Trump for a peace treaty, he’s still there on Trump’s orders, and literally conducting foreign policy for a government he doesn’t represent.

That’s like if I brought my friend to McDonald’s and told them to start cooking burgers: Neither of us works there. Ric Grenell doesn’t have any of his three Trump-appointed jobs anymore, and Trump definitely doesn’t have a job now either.

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