UK Could Fine Foreign Secretary For Offense Committed With VP Vance
Last week, British Foreign Minister David Lammy hosted U.S. Vice President JD Vance for a fishing trip at Lammy’s countryside retreat in England. Now, he may face a fine for it.
On Wednesday, Lammy reported himself to the U.K.’s environment regulator for fishing without a rod license — an offense that can carry a penalty of up to £2,500 (US$3,400), CTV News of Canada reported.
“The foreign secretary has written to the Environment Agency over an administrative oversight that meant the appropriate licenses had not been acquired for fishing on a private lake as part of a diplomatic engagement at Chevening House last week,” a Foreign Office spokesperson told the outlet.
“As soon as the foreign secretary was made aware of the administrative error, he successfully purchased the relevant rod fishing licenses,” the spokesperson noted further.
“He also wrote to the Environment Agency notifying them of the error, demonstrating how it would be rectified, and thanking them for their work protecting Britain’s fisheries,” the spokesperson said, per CTV News.
Lammy welcomed Vance to Chevening House, his official grace-and-favor residence in Kent, known as the Garden of England. Following his diplomatic meetings, the vice president remained in the U.K. for a vacation with his family.
Despite Vance’s past criticism of the British government’s “heavy-handed” stance on free speech, he and Lammy appeared friendly at a joint press conference held after their unlicensed fishing trip.
“Unfortunately, the one strain on the special relationship is that all of my kids caught fish, but the foreign secretary did not,” Vance told reporters.
According to Britain’s PA Media news agency, the fish caught by the group were released back into the private lake.
In England and Wales, anyone aged 13 or older is required by law to have a rod license for freshwater fishing — a measure designed to protect fish populations and promote sustainable fisheries.
“Everyone who goes fishing needs a licence to help improve our rivers, lakes and the sport anglers love,” said an Environment Agency spokesperson, according to PA. “We understand the relevant licences have been purchased.”
Earlier this week, Vance turned heads with a prediction that there will be “a lot of people indicted” in the Russiagate scandal that is currently being re-investigated by the Justice Department.
During an interview on Fox News Sunday, Vance did not reveal any specific names of people whom he thinks will be charged, but he did cite recent disclosures from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard as conclusive evidence that there had been “an aggressive violation of the law” about Russiagate.
“Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for account about on the whole Russia collusion, made-up story. Now that DNI Tulsi Gabbard has released all of those classified documents, we’re actually seeing who was behind all of this. Do you want to see indictments?” host Maria Bartiromo asked.
“I absolutely want to see indictments, Maria. Look, of course you’ve got to have the law follow the facts here. You don’t just indict people to indict people. You indict people because they broke the law. But if you look at what Tulsi and Kash Patel have revealed in the last couple of weeks, I don’t know how anybody can look at that and say there wasn’t aggressive violations of the law,” Vance said.
“What they basically did is they defrauded the American people in order to take Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign talking points and turn them into intelligence by defrauding the American people, defrauding the intelligence agencies, lying about what the intel said,” he added.
“And through that they actually laundered Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign talking points through the American intelligence services. That’s a violation of the people’s trust. That’s a violation of what our intelligence services should be doing, and I absolutely think they broke the law. You’re going to see a lot of people get indicted for that,” Vance noted further.
