ALWAYS BET ON THE dEEP sTATE:

WHY DID THE U.S. ASK CANADA TO DO THIS NOW, WHEN THESE CHARGES HAVE BEEN KNOWN FOR YEARS?

McLaughlin: I'm giving the government a lot of credit here, but it could have just taken the Justice Department this long to develop a case in a way they think could stand up in court. But the timing of it is just bizarre. In a normal administration -- and I worked in a bunch of normal ones -- what happens is you have the national security advisor convene around a table in the White House Situation Room representatives from every major agency to discuss the pros and cons of a step like this. Instead, what we have here looks like three parts of the U.S. government operating without talking to each other: the Justice Department, the White House and the trade negotiators. ouse and touse and the trade negotiators.

BUT DON'T WE HAVE CONCERNS ABOUT HUAWEI?

Absolutely. There is ample evidence that, like most major Chinese companies, it is closely aligned with the military and security services and working to assist their intelligence collection and influence missions while pursuing -- very successfully -- legitimate business objectives. And there is also no doubt that China's trade practices are unfair and in need of reform. But while these issues justify pushing back on national security grounds, they are not persuasive reasons to arrest a prominent foreign national. That requires evidence of criminal behavior.

SO WHAT CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR COULD BE INVOLVED?

Well, many sanctions violations do not have criminal penalties. More likely, they result in fines and denial of trade, as with another Chinese telecom company, ZTE. One possibility is that she is being charged under a provision that requires foreign companies selling to Iran to have less than 10 percent U.S. components in their products. Or perhaps there is some espionage violation that will be charged. We'll have to wait and see.

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