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Did Naughty Nancy violate Federal law?
Last week, our man Jeffy wondered whether Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s snuggling up to Syria’s state terrorist President Assad was an act of Treason, by violating Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution, by giving “aid and comfort to the enemy.”
Not a bad question. But what ever happened to the Logan Act allegations? The Logan Act, 15 U.S.C Section 953 expressly prohibits U.S. citizens to conduct foreign policy of the United States without authority . Here is the statute:
§ 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments. 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.
This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply himself, or his agent, to any foreign government, or the agents thereof, for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.
1 Stat. 613, January 30, 1799, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 953 (2004).
Pelosi’s actions seem to have clearly violated this statute. The authority to conduct foreign policy on behalf of the United States is vested in Executive Branch, not in the Congress. In this regard, Nancy Pelosi has as much authority to conduct U.S. foreign policy as, say, Jimmy Carter.
Did Pelosi attempt to use her position to conduct U.S. foreign policy? Here is what she described as her mission: “We expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria.” Representative Tom Lantos, who went along with Pelosi, said that Pelosi’s trip was for the express purpose of working around the President’s policy of refusing to talk with Syria or Iran. In one example, Pelosi proudly reported that it would be necessary for the infiltration of terrorists from Syria to Iraq to stop before the U.S. could enter any further serious diplomatic talks with Syria.
Say what? Since when does Nancy Pelosi dictate the terms of U.S. foreign policy to other countries heads of state?
Stopping this sort of nonsense is exactly the purpose of the Logan Act. The Act was passed during the John Adams administration when the Federalist Party became irritated by a Massachusetts state legislator who undertook his own form of shuttle diplomacy with the French, when tensions between the US and France were approaching a war-like pitch.  (Imagine that.) Logan was never prosecuted under the act — and neither has anyone else been prosecuted – but the Act has appeared from time to time to stop the freelancing that Pelosi is engaging in. In the most famous example, Ronald Reagan threatened to prosecute Speaker of the House Jim Wright under the Logan Act for doing his own diplomacy by flying to Managua and courting Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega.
So why not pursue Pelosi? Wall Street OpinionJournal writer Robert Turner – a former Assistant Secretary of State — thinks its time has come:
“The offense is greater when the usurpation of the President’s constitutional authority is done by a member of the legislature — all the more so by a Speaker of the House — becaue it violates not just a statutory law but constitutes a usurpation of the powers of a separate branch and a breach of the oath of office Ms. Pelosi took to support the Constitution.. . The U.S. is in the midst of two wars authorized by Congress. For Ms. Pelosi to flout the Constitution in these circumstances is not only shortsighted, it may well be a felony, as the Logan Act has been part of our criminal law for more than two centuries. Perhaps it is time to enforce the law.”
Is there a special counsel in the house?