Did 47 Republican senators break the law in plain sight?

[xUT]

Did 47 Republican senators break the law in plain sight?
 
 

Pundits and legal scholars are raising questions over whether Sen. Tom Cotton and the 46 Senate Republicans violated the Logan Act when they penned a letter to Iran's leaders on Monday, undercutting President Barack Obama's efforts to negotiate a nuclear agreement with those same leaders. The law, passed in 1799, forbids any U.S. citizen -- acting without official U.S. authority -- from influencing "disputes or controversies" involving the U.S. and a foreign government.
 

 
Sigh....
 
I think Jon Stewart put it best:
 

 

 

[Ms Tree]

Interesting argument.  I do not know if it was illegal or not but I think it was incredibly poor judgement.  I loved the response from Iran.  
 

"in our view, this letter has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy. It is very interesting that while negotiations are still in progress and while no agreement has been reached, some political pressure groups are so afraid even of the prospect of an agreement that they resort to unconventional methods, unprecedented in diplomatic history. This indicates that like Netanyahu, who considers peace as an existential threat, some are opposed to any agreement, regardless of its content.
 

 

Foreign Minister Zarif added that "I should bring one important point to the attention of the authors and that is, the world is not the United States, and the conduct of inter-state relations is governed by international law, and not by US domestic law. The authors may not fully understand that in international law, governments represent the entirety of their respective states, are responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs, are required to fulfil the obligations they undertake with other states and may not invoke their internal law as justification for failure to perform their international obligations.
The Iranian Foreign Minister added that "change of administration does not in any way relieve the next administration from international obligations undertaken by its predecessor in a possible agreement about Irans peaceful nuclear program." He continued "I wish to enlighten the authors that if the next administration revokes any agreement with the stroke of a pen, as they boast, it will have simply committed a blatant violation of international law."
 

 
Seems at the very least, Cotton and his colleges may need a refresher civics course.  It is in very poor form to get schooled by foreigners about your own form of government.

 

[Ms Tree]

And this just came in.  I nearly fell out of my chair reading the headline.
 
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/iran-offers-to-mediate-talks-between-republicans-and-obama
 
 

“Tensions between these two historic enemies have been high in recent years, but we believe they are now at a boiling point,” Khamenei said. “As a result, Iran feels it must offer itself as a peacemaker.”
He said that his nation was the “logical choice” to jumpstart negotiations between Obama and the Republicans because “it has become clear that both sides currently talk more to Iran than to each other.”

 
I think Cotton just became the punch line to a bad joke.  Seems he may have over stepped his bounds and bit off quite a bit more than he can chew.  I need to find a list of the other idiots who signed this letter.
 
Edit:
 
Looks like it may have been satire.  Still looking.

 

[xUT]

Doesn't exactly make me a proud Merican...
Man, we need a change.
:wacko:

 

[eolesen]

When Sen. McGovern was accused of violating it with regard to talking to Cuba in 1975, this was the ruling from State Department:

The clear intent of this provision [Logan Act] is to prohibit unauthorized persons from intervening in disputes between the United States and foreign governments. Nothing in section 953 [Logan Act], however, would appear to restrict members of the Congress from engaging in discussions with foreign officials in pursuance of their legislative duties under the Constitution.

Lots of faux outrage on this, clearly to try and distract people from Hillary's email problems....

 

[eolesen]

State Department spokesperson admits any deal with Iran is non-binding absent Senate ratification:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjlRoXmS5zc

As does John Kerry:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2561368

I guess Kerry was for Senate oversight and concurrence before he was against it...

 

[Dog Wonder]

When Sen. McGovern was accused of violating it with regard to talking to Cuba in 1975, this was the ruling from State Department:


Lots of faux outrage on this, clearly to try and distract people from Hillary's email problems....

1976?

Faux outrage?

 

[signals]

So what happens if the next administration is against it? Iran will view the USA as the great Satan as it always was and the Democrats will blame the newly elected Republican president.

Real or not, this is what it's all about!

 

[xUT]

So what happens if the next administration is against it? Iran will view the USA as the great Satan as it always was and the Democrats will blame the newly elected Republican president.

Real or not, this is what it's all about!

We are consistently inconsistent.
Who the he11 is going to trust us?
While supporting Saddam in IRAQ in the Iraq/Iran war, we were trading arms for hostages to Iran then wonder why Saddam was pissed.
We should have stopped this with Jihad Jane and put her in the slammer for a couple of years.
 
:wacko:
 
B)

 

[Ms Tree]

When Sen. McGovern was accused of violating it with regard to talking to Cuba in 1975, this was the ruling from State Department:


Lots of faux outrage on this, clearly to try and distract people from Hillary's email problems....

 
I think the outrage is quite real.  Cotton and the others tried to cut Obama off at the knees and it seems to have backfired.  Iran pretty much told the republicans where they could stick their letter.  As I understand it there are numerous international agreements which have not been ratified by Congress and many if not all are still active and honored by succeeding presidents.
 
It is the duty of the president to negotiate treaties.  The job of Congress is to ratify them or turn them down.  For them to intervene in the negotiation process is laughable.  For them to try and educate the Iranians on how the US government works is just plain stupid and insulting.

 

[delldude]

Starting to realize what hope and change is all about.

 

[MCI transplant]

Interesting argument.  I do not know if it was illegal or not but I think it was incredibly poor judgement.  I loved the response from Iran.  
 
 
 
Seems at the very least, Cotton and his colleges may need a refresher civics course.  It is in very poor form to get schooled by foreigners about your own form of government.

Tree exactly what " international law" is he talking about? And since when is "international law" part of our " own form of government"?

 

[eolesen]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7WtIaVMrXs

 

[Dog Wonder]

You made it out of the 70s.

 

[Ms Tree]

Tree exactly what " international law" is he talking about? And since when is "international law" part of our " own form of government"?

I did not mean to imply that international law trumps US law.  There are numerous executive agreements with multiple countries that are still in effect and have not been abrogated by succeeding presidents or Congress.  To do so would seriously hamper a presidents ability to negotiate anything.
 
Here is a breakdown of treaty vs agreement.  According to the article nearly 95% of international agreements are done via executive agreement.  It does speak of international law but I think I am going to eat dinner first and then look into that.
 
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/mar/11/tom-cotton/letter-iran-47-republican-senators-correct-about-c/
 
The article concludes that the the letter was mostly true but from the content of the article I think it is similar to the statement that "it is possible the earth will be hit by a catastrophic meteor.  Yes it is true but highly improbable.