For well over a year now, Secretary of State John Kerry has been in the midst of negotiating a nuclear treaty with the Nation of Iran, a project which has been at the center of a whirlwind of controversy last visited with the congressional speech in opposition by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 3rd, 2015. The deal at this time is described by the Obama administration as “an outline”, with details to be released later, while opposition, including by the Israel Government, say that a limited term for such a deal “paves Iran’s path to the (atomic) bomb”.
In reaction to the Obama proposal of this deal being impending, 47 Republican U.S. Senators, led by Tom Cotton of Arkansas, have written a letter to “the Leaders of Iran”, which has Democrats and supporters of the President up in arms. Dr. Peter Spiro, Professor of Law at Temple University has suggested that the 47 signatory Senators, including Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz may be guilty of criminal activity, while both Bloomberg News and the New York Daily News have suggested they may be guilty of treason! It should be noted that Dr. Spiro is a former member of the Clinton Administration.
Regarding these accusations of criminal activity by literally half of the United States Senate, they stem from an ancient law called the Logan Act, first passed in 1799 and unused since 1804 even to bring a prosecution. No one has ever been convicted under this law. The Logan Act states that, “Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government” in order to influence that government, is guilty of a felony.
What should be made clear about the actual letter drafted and signed by nearly every Republican in the Senate, is that it reads like a sixth grade civics textbook, explaining the form of the United States Government. Among the apparently felonious intelligence given to the Iran Government by the GOP was:
* The President negotiates international treaties, while the Senate ratifies them.
* The approval of treaties requires an affirmative vote of 2/3rds of the Senate.
* That a Congressional - Executive Agreement requires a major vote of both Houses of Congress.
* And that the President can serve two four-year terms, while Senators serve six year terms.
Yes, the purpose of telling the Iranian government these things was to inform them that a unilateral agreement with a President in the last two years of his term may not last much longer than that term. However, the liberal press and many Democrats, including Senators Harry Reid and Dick Durbin literally believe that over 40 Senators should be jailed for telling foreign leaders things that no one in America can pass the seventh grade without knowing.
Sometimes the Democratic Party stretches credibility, with Senate Minority Leader Reid calling the letter “spiteful”. A petition sponsored by the White House to charge the signers of the letter with treason against the United States itself, contained 140,000 signatures at the time of this writing.
Never mind that most legal scholars, including Steve Vladeck of the Brookings Institute believe that the Logan Act is completely unenforceable and a violation of the First Amendment. The day Democrats are actually able to enforce a law barring United States Senators from writing letters in which they speak their own minds, our Republic is in very, very deep trouble. The real treason may be Democrats who feel the First Amendment doesn’t apply to our own leaders.
Here is a link to the actual letter sent by the Senators
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