Congress critters have always traveled around on fact finding missions and as PR for this and that, sometimes even real diplomacy.

Most of the time it is graft or corruptions, sure, same as all else the Enemy does, most all of it is Evil.

But Congress has always done these things. As a junior Congress critter in 1942 LBJ visited Guadalcanal on a fact finding mission for the sole reason of raising his future political capital. At a time when the Marines were starving and running out of ammo and everything room was made logistically to get Congress in there, and it all had to be flown in then.

We have asked these questions for decades and decades and decades.