Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Logan Act Screamers: You Are Stupid

Oh give me a break.
The latest from the loony left is a screamfest calling for the 47 Senators who sent a letter to Iran explaining how our Constitution works, and the difference between executive agreements and treaties (hint: One has the force of law, the other does not!) to be charged with violating The Logan Act.
The Logan Act is a 200 year old law that says that anyone who interferes with the Presidential power to conduct foreign policy has violated Federal Law and may be imprisoned for same.
There's a problem with this 200-year old law however: Nobody has ever been actually prosecuted under it, and there has only been one indictment ever issued (and that one, in 1803, wasn't prosecuted!)
Why not?
It's kinda simple really: It's not at all certain that this act is Constitutional, especially if you tried to apply it to someone who engaged in mere speech, particularly if the speech contains the truth.  Bring a charge against someone and actually prosecute it and the Constitutionality of that act is almost-certain to be challenged.
At issue here is the premise of advice and consent that applies to treaties but not executive agreements; the huge majority of such negotiations over the 225+ years of this nation have been of the latter form.  However, those "agreements" are indeed subject to revision (or outright scrapping!) by any future administration just as unilaterally as they're entered into and it is utterly true that Presidents serve for fewer years, on balance, than do Senators -- especially second-term Presidents!
Iran, for its part, is bleating about this as well -- but their complaint, and claims that this sort of reversal would implicate international law, is factually false.  Iran could easily insist that any such deal have the force of a formal treaty, and refuse to negotiate an executive agreement should theydesire a durable agreement that has actual force of law and would thus require formal legal process to repeal.
However, Iran doesn't want that either, because they don't want to negotiate something the requisite number of Senators would accept.  
Everyone in this little charade, including most-particularly the scream-fest jackasses like Chris Matthews and Daily Kos, are simply being too cute by half.
Stand with fools and you will discover that the ground you are on is in fact quicksand.

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