Posted on 12/15/2006 4:19:34 PM PST by lancer256
I suppose certain puffed-up congressmen are feeling their oats since the election, but that's no excuse for their unauthorized trips overseas to meet with leaders of foreign nations. This destructive practice must be stopped.
Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson traveled to Syria and met with its president, Bashar Assad, without the authority and contrary to the wishes of the Bush administration, including the State Department.
The well-known policy of the Bush administration is that the United States has limited diplomatic ties with the Syrian government because of its support for terrorist organizations Hezbollah and Hamas, its support of terrorism and ethnic strife in Iraq, and its policy toward Lebanon.
The Constitution firmly places the conduct of U.S. foreign policy in the hands of the executive branch because the Framers understood the pitfalls of conducting foreign policy by committee.
Legislators, no matter how personally popular or professionally respected, and irrespective of the wisdom or foolishness of the policies they are seeking to promote, have no business -- as a matter of Constitutional law, historical practice and common sense -- meeting with foreign leaders without executive permission. (Some would even argue that Nelson's unilateral junket violates the Logan Act -- which carries criminal penalties -- but there's insufficient space to address that here.)
(Excerpt) Read more at davidlimbaugh.com ...
Anybody is free to meet with anybody. Making formal agreements with foreign countries is strictly limited, although sometimes allowed if nobody cares enough--Gadsden Purchase (James Gadsden, for the Transcontinental Railroad).
What about The Logan Act?
Were any deals between the USA and Syria signed?
The only ones they should be going overseas to visit are Jim Jones or a suitable surrogate.
Logan Act:
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.
§ 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.
18 U.S.C. § 953 (2004).
When do the trials start?
btw, thanks for posting that.
Are there any such between Syria and the USA? Also, what does 'influence' mean? These are without a doubt technical legal terms.
Right. Is that a technical legal term or does it mean any kind of commerce? Corporations have been conducting commerce with foreign countries all along for centuries and without treaty.
Of course there are also many laws on the books that are seemingly ignored by the government...
Specter and Dodd also junketed to the ME, but I've read nothing about what they did there. Has anyone here?
The trials will never start, because the left has always been free to be as treasonous and law-breaking as any of its members wants. The only person who tried to stop it was McCarthy, who obviously had his defects; but otherwise, the left has traditionally been given a free pass to commit any act of treason or even simple crime (such as stashing the money you have extorted in your freezer) with absolutely no accountability.
Being a leftist means never having to say you're sorry.
And that is the problem with the Right, they allow it. No matter how loudly we have screamed about the leaks etc. for the past 6 years, the Right has allowed it to go on. With no hearings, no charges, nothing.
In the meantime we have leftists trying to initiate impeachment proceedings.
The Right can be viewed with as much contempt as we do the left. The contempt is for failure to their sworn oath of office, to the American people, and their own constituencies. If the left gets away with it, it is our own da*n fault.
Good old Bill Nelson. Thanks once again Jeb Bush, for not doing the smart thing and run for Senate. Oh, and thanks for trashing the candidate who had the guts to run against him admirably.
You're absolutely correct. The right does permit it. Interestingly enough, this is true everywhere. The left is not only allowed to get away with things, but to persecute and prosecute the right for even the suspicion of the very same things. And the left is obsessed with attacking the right this way.
I'm in Spain at the moment, where their raving socialist government is currently planning on reopening trials from the Franco era. Leaving aside the fact that these people actually all were guilty of trying to bring Communism back into Spain, after having tried it in the 30s and gotten kicked out by Franco, there is absolutely no reason to do this. It is yet another attempt by the left to stir up popular hatred of conservatives, which is what a lot of the things the left does here are aimed at doing. And then it's time for the guillotine.
The only thing that is truly bizarre now is that the left has a lot of very wealthy people in it. But it probably did at the time of the French Revolution, too.
It doesn't matter 1 iota if these guys violated the Logan Act or not. Reading the act, it looks like a case could be made that they have violated the act. But even if there was a crystal clear, iron clad case against them it still wouldn't matter.
Our government has absolutely no willpower, backbone or fortitude whatsoever. It will never prosecute these people, no matter what. If they were caught on tape taking bribes... maybe. But the Logan Act? Not gonna happen, ever.
We are loath to characterize even the most blatant cases of treason as 'treason'. This is no different. Our government will do absolutely nothing about this.
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