Should house Republicans be charged and tried with violation of the Logan act?

[Smapti]

Congressional Republicans should be designated as enemy combatants and detained indefinitely without trial.

Holding them accountable for this act of petty treason is a step in the right direction.

[Little_Nemo]

@Bricker

Er…
…to make it by passing laws, yes, but not to make it by negotiating with foreign governments. They get to approve treaties, yes, but not to negotiate them. That task is the prerogative of the President, as Art II mandates.

@Ravenman

They are U.S. officials, and they are representatives of their states, but they are not representatives of the U.S. Government.

But Senators do have an official role in enacting treaties. They can make an official statement that a treaty will or will not be enacted.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@Ravenman

What, specifically, makes you think that?

It’s speculative, but I’ve gave my reason in my initial post on the subject.

I’ve shown an article in which the Iranian parliament basically recognizes that Congress could sink a nuclear deal. I think that shows some sophistication with respect to understanding the U.S. political system. But you’ve just repeated the same thing a couple times: that Iranians probably think our government is like theirs. Do you have any backing for this belief? Or is it just like me saying that I bet Angela Merkel is a noisy eater, and that Shinzo Abe probably has a pretty good singing voice; as in, just total speculation?

I cited two ways in which Congress – not just a Republican Congress, since there was considerable support in the Democratic Senate for increasing sanctions as these talks were just beginning – could exercise its power to tank the talks. If Iranian leaders believed that Congress was basically powerless in these issues, they probably would have dismissed such efforts as nothing more than hot air. I don’t believe they have dismissed Congress in that way.

I’m sure they understand that congress passes laws including sanctions laws. That’s not what the Republican letter addresses.

The letter addresses specifically whether an international agreement made by a president without congressional sanction is binding on another president. That’s a bit more nuanced.

[D_Anconia]

@Bricker

No, because a letter has a sender(s) and a recipient. That places it beyond a publication of general interest and begets the strong inference that it is intended to influence the actions of the recipient.

But is it necessarily illegal “to intend to influence the actions of the recipient”?

To use a trivial example, if I were to write a letter to the network against the cancellation of my favorite television program?

[ElvisL1ves]

Little Nemo: Not all agreements with foreign governments constitute treaties requiring Senate action, and which thereby make them US law. For those that do, their public disagreement is expressed by voting against them. Before that? I don’t know of any historic precedent. During the actual negotiations? That is hard to justify, unless you’re of the common view that Obama is a demon who must be opposed no matter what he does, since it’s by definition evil.

[Bricker]

@D_Anconia

But is it necessarily illegal “to intend to influence the actions of the recipient”?

To use a trivial example, if I were to write a letter to the network against the cancellation of my favorite television program?

You certainly have a First Amendment interest in being able to write such a letter, but that interest is limited: you can threaten to withdraw your viewing and boycott sponsors without losing First Amendment protection but cannot threaten to vivisect the network president’s parakeet in any sort of immediately credible way.

[D_Anconia]

@Bricker

You certainly have a First Amendment interest in being able to write such a letter, but that interest is limited: you can threaten to withdraw your viewing and boycott sponsors without losing First Amendment protection but cannot threaten to vivisect the network president’s parakeet in any sort of immediately credible way.

Which example is the most like the Senators’ letter? The boycott, or the vivisection?

[Bricker]

@D_Anconia

Which example is the most like the Senators’ letter? The boycott, or the vivisection?

That’s a difficult question.

Here’s why: the letter is most like the boycott, in that it’s a quasi-threat but one that’s legal to make, in that it “threatens” a legal consequence.

But remember that this is true because the Logan Act is broken. Congress could, if it chose, constitutionally prohibit such communications.

[Happy_Fun_Ball]

@Little_Nemo

But Senators do have an official role in enacting treaties. They can make an official statement that a treaty will or will not be enacted.

Two points:
[ol]
[li]This is not a treaty and the Senate is not going to get a shot at approving it (unless of course the Menendez bill is passed and signed into law).[/li][li]Can the Senate make an official statement before they even know what is going to be in the treaty? Doesn’t this interfere with the President’s powers as outlined in Article 2?[/li][/ol]

[ElvisL1ves]

@Happy_Fun_Ball

unless of course the Menendez bill is passed and signed into law

Which, given the President’s veto power, it obviously won’t be. Menendez is grandstanding like the rest of them.

Can the Senate make an official statement before they even know what is going to be in the treaty? Doesn’t this interfere with the President’s powers as outlined in Article 2?

They have to reject it to find out what’s in it?

[Happy_Fun_Ball]

@ElvisL1ves

They have to reject it to find out what’s in it?

No, they should have to find out what’s in it to reject it.

[ElvisL1ves]

Of course. I was poking fun at another of their favorite memes.

[BrainGlutton]

And Iran’s Foreign Minister responds:

Asked about the open letter of 47 US Senators to Iranian leaders, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Dr. Javad Zarif, responded that “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.”

<snip>

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 Iran’s 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.” He emphasized that if the current negotiation with P5+1 [Britain, China, France, Germany Russia and the United States] result in a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, it will not be a bilateral agreement between Iran and the US, but rather one that will be concluded with the participation of five other countries, including all permanent members of the Security Council, and will also be endorsed by a Security Council resolution.

Zarif expressed the hope that his comments “may enrich the knowledge of the authors to recognize that according to international law, Congress may not ‘modify the terms of the agreement at any time’ as they claim, and if Congress adopts any measure to impede its implementation, it will have committed a material breach of US obligations.”

[CandidGamera]

Apparently, they get Schoolhouse Rock in Iran, but not in Alabama.

[Ravenman]

I don’t fully agree with the Iranians response, and actually disagree quite strongly with a few points, but holy cow, Senator Cotton just got schooled.

[Skammer]

On this issue I agree with the Iranian Foreign Minister a lot more than I agree with the knuckleheads who wrote the letter.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@Skammer

On this issue I agree with the Iranian Foreign Minister a lot more than I agree with the knuckleheads who wrote the letter.

I think we need a lawyer to comment here. Is this guy’s claims correct? It’s hard to imagine that the president would acquire powers not granted by the constitution by virtue of international law, and I would have to think international law only comes into effect after the guy making the international agreement is authorized to make the agreement that he makes.

[I believe there was some legal wrangling over related issues over some foreign criminal sentenced by a state court, but it could be these are not legally the same issue.]

[Ravenman]

The Vienna Convention on Treaties defines a treaty as an international agreement entered into by two or more states and governed by international law. It could be that executive agreements are not covered by the Convention as far as the U.S. is concerned, for reasons I don’t care to go into right now.

So, the Convention clearly states that countries have to uphold their treaties. It also clearly states that a country can’t point to internal law as being the reason for not upholding a treaty: “A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty.”

It is a reasonable conclusion that in the eyes of international law, the United States can’t get out of valid agreements with other countries by saying, “Hey, we tried, but our law doesn’t let us carry out this agreement.”

From a Constitutional perspective, however, there can be a much different conclusion.

[BrainGlutton]

@Ravenman

The Vienna Convention on Treaties defines a treaty as an international agreement entered into by two or more states and governed by international law. It could be that executive agreements are not covered by the Convention as far as the U.S. is concerned, for reasons I don’t care to go into right now.

Zarif also says:

The Foreign Minister also informed the authors that majority of US international agreements in recent decades are in fact what the signatories describe as “mere executive agreements” and not treaties ratified by the Senate. He reminded them that “their letter in fact undermines the credibility of thousands of such ‘mere executive agreements’ that have been or will be entered into by the US with various other governments.”

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@Ravenman

The Vienna Convention on Treaties defines a treaty as an international agreement entered into by two or more states and governed by international law. It could be that executive agreements are not covered by the Convention as far as the U.S. is concerned, for reasons I don’t care to go into right now.

So, the Convention clearly states that countries have to uphold their treaties. It also clearly states that a country can’t point to internal law as being the reason for not upholding a treaty: “A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty.”

It is a reasonable conclusion that in the eyes of international law, the United States can’t get out of valid agreements with other countries by saying, “Hey, we tried, but our law doesn’t let us carry out this agreement.”

From a Constitutional perspective, however, there can be a much different conclusion.

But the point is that if the President is not authorized under the US constitution to enter into a treaty without ratification by the Senate, then it would seem that the US has never entered into this treaty under international law either.

I mean, suppose I sign the treaty with Iran on behalf of the US - obviously it would be null and void under international law. To the extent that the president doesn’t have the authority to sign treaties, how does international law come into play to begin with?