Did John McCain Violate the Logan Act?

What’s
Wrong Today:


Have you ever heard
of the Logan Act? It says
that any attempt by a US citizen to conduct foreign relations without authority
is a felony. It has been in effect since 1799. Here is a section:


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 or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence
the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent
thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States,
or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title
or imprisoned not more than three years, or both…



Potential violations of
the Logan Act have come up occasionally. During the Reagan administration,
there were two separate occasions in which prosecution under the Logan Act was
threatened. Once when Reverend Jesse Jackson traveled to
Cuba and Nicaragua and another time,
when House Speaker Jim Wright
attempted to negotiate a cease-fire between Nicaragua‘s Sandinista government and
the Contras. (At the time,
President Reagan was much more interested in carrying out an illegal war than
an unsatisfying peace.)


In
both cases, the threatened use of the Logan Act was not carried out, probably
due to the vagueness of its wording.


So, what has Mr.
McCain done that brings this up today?



According to the WaPo,
Mr. McCain (R-AZ) and
fellow Senate Republicans Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John Barrasso (R-WY) traveled
to Israel and met with Mr. Netanyahu while
Secretary of State John Kerry was in Jerusalem working
to win Israeli and Palestinian backing for a rough outline of a peace deal.
Kerry had met with Netanyahu on Friday for the second time in two days, and he
met later with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.



So that meant that
McCain and Graham had to immediately meet with Netanyahu. Subsequently, Mr.
McCain voiced skepticism about Kerry’s efforts, saying that Netanyahu:



has serious, serious concerns about
the plan as it has been presented to him..



Although the details
of the proposals, are largely secret, McCain and Graham
suggested that they and other supporters of Israel in Congress will greet
Kerry’s program skeptically: (clarification by the Wrongologist)


We feel very
strongly that the peace process is very important sooner or later, and we
support the legitimate peace process…[but McCain doubted whether some aspects
of the agreement are] truly enforceable and viable options that would not put
Israel in jeopardy…


So, once again Mr.
McCain and Mr. Graham show their contempt for our democracy and the separation of
powers that places the responsibility for US foreign policy on the President.



And they managed to
take time out of their undermining effort to speak to the press about the news that al-Qaeda has
taken control of Fallujah, a city of 350,000 in Iraq, calling it
a failure
by Obama, saying
that he had been wrong to withdraw all US troops from Iraq in December of 2011.


McCain and
Graham are of course also wrong on
this matter: The Iraqi parliament rejected a Status of Forces Agreement
(SOFA) with the US on George W. Bush’s watch and then refused to reconsider
with Mr. Obama. Without a SOFA, as Sen. McCain knows very well, US troops could
not engage in combat without risking being brought to Iraqi courts and charged
with war crimes.


In McCain’s
case, this isn’t the first time he has walked the line on the Logan Act. In fact, McCain is something of a serial
foreign policy intruder:


  • Remember in 2011 during the confusion of the Arab Spring, as Egypt was just
    emerging from widespread unrest after Hosni Mubarak stepped down, Sen. McCain and
    then-Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) made a surprise visit to Cairo. They met with
    Arab League chief Amr Mussa and made quasi-policy statements to reporters. Neither
    Lieberman nor McCain ever said that they were not there in a diplomatic or
    official capacity.


  • McCain
    snuck
    into Syria     in May of 2013 to meet with the Free Syrian Army and then urge
    President Obama to set up a no-fly zone, supply anti-aircraft and anti-tank
    weapons to the insurgents.

Most
rational House and Senate members ― including most Republicans, would never
even think of undermining their POTUS, (even if he’s from another party) by
flying in and holding a news conference in the middle of an ongoing diplomatic negotiation. But we are talking about Johnny
Volcano, who keeps doing
the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. An action
that most of us would agree is one definition of insanity.


Everywhere that McCain
has interfered in our foreign policy has led to confusion. Netanyahu can’t be comfortable
with McCain showing up when he did.


Kerry has repeatedly
said that the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations is an extremely difficult
process with little chance for success. Do you think he ever expected that
McCain and Graham’s crashing the party would be among the problems he
would face?

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