Trump said on Thursday he dispatched an “envoy ambassador” to the Kosovo-Serbia border.
In response, a White House official said the former president had a “very active imagination.”
Trump’s so-called “envoy ambassador” is Richard Grenell, a former diplomat and staunch ally.
The White House mocked former President Donald Trump after he said he had an “envoy ambassador” still making foreign trips for him.
In a Thursday statement, Trump said he sent his “envoy ambassador” Richard Grenell to the Kosovo-Serbia border on his behalf to “highlight” an agreement brokered there during his presidency.
“The agreements my administration brokered are historic and should not be abandoned, many lives are at stake,” Trump wrote in the statement.
An unnamed White House official dismissed the statement immediately, telling the RealClearPolitics reporter Philip Wegmann:”Outside of his very active imagination, Donald Trump is no longer president and doesn’t have any ‘envoy ambassadors’ representing the United States.”
In 2019, Trump named Grenell a special envoy for Serbia-Kosovo peace negotiations that resulted in a historic agreement to resume flights between the two country’s capitals, The New York Times reported.
Grenell, a staunch Trump ally, also served as the US ambassador to Germany from 2018 to 2020 and became acting director of national intelligence for about four months in 2020.
Vivian Salama, a national security reporter for The Wall Street Journal, tweeted that former presidents should not have active envoys, adding: “In reality, I suspect Grenell’s visit is more a courtesy than anything serious.”
Trump and his allies have previously acted as though he was running a sort of shadow presidency since he left the White House in January.
In July, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said he and Trump were meeting “cabinet members” at Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey to discuss his political future.
He also described Trump as “a president who is fully engaged, highly focused, and remaining on task,” HuffPost reported.
The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
After visiting Albania, Grenell visited Kosovo and now is in Serbia on a mission “to find economic opportunities” for the region.
On Thursday, he visited the Kosovo-Serbia crossing point of Merdare, where he highlighted the economic agreements that the US mediated and called for their implementation
Speaking from Merdare on Thursday, Grenell voiced his frustration that the agreements have not been implemented.
“I come here because we are frustrated. Former Trump administration officials and many American people are frustrated because we saw the historic economic agreement, four economic agreement that were negotiated for the people of Kosovo and for the people of Serbia. This was not done for the government, this was not political. It was solely for economic development,” Grenell said, referring to economic pledges signed between Pristina and Belgrade during 2020.
“There is this idea in this region of a perceived conflict… Many westerners think that there is hostilities going on and they think that there is a conflict going on. What ends up happening is businesses don’t move here because of a perceived conflict,” he added.
Grenell also criticized the European Union, and urged Brussels to take “more action” when it comes to the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue.
“I got criticized a lot when I was in government because they said I did not include the Europeans. That was one of criticism but that’s not true. I included the French and Germans, I briefed them constantly… My idea was to brief French and Germans and then let them go to Brussels [and ask] for more action,” Grenell said. / Argumentum.al
