Senator Durbin recently sent a letter to the President of Turkey requesting the release of a prisoner. Does that also violate the Logan Act, in your view?
Link might require a signup, but it’s the best I could find. I also heard about this on WGN Radio.
ETA: The question is directed to the OP.
But how is that determinative? The law in question says “without authority of the United States”. What is “the United States”? As a member of the US Senate, how would one determine if they need some other “authority”?
Wow, he wrote a letter. Based on the story, it doesn’t appear to have done any good. Maybe someone should have contacted the State Dept. since that’s their job.
Some dipshits send a letter to a foreign government. Not only is the statute suspect because it is vague, it is just a letter, and seems to me that would also make it free speech. I don’t think this stupid letter is criminally actionable at all, but I’m not a criminal law expert by any means.
Not every international agreement is a treaty. Under longstanding US practice–used by Presidents of both parties–the executive branch may enter into agreements with foreign powers without Senate participation under certain limited circumstances. This is generally thought to be within Presidential power when the subject matter of that agreement is within the Article II power; implementation can be done through executive action; no state laws must be superseded; and there is no contrary legislation. The State Department has additional customary factors when assessing whether an executive agreement is appropriate.
What are you on about? I’m not clear if you don’t know how treaties become law in the US, or if you’re trying to formulate some sophistry by which to argue that the U.S. hasn’t been a party to the Vienna Convention for the last half century or so.
Right. And that’s what the 47 Senators did, write a letter. But the OP wants to put them on trial. :dubious:
My understanding is that treaties are ratified by the Senate, and if so that would apply to the Vienna convention as well (assuming it wasn’t ratified by the senate).
I see where Richard Parker seems to be saying that some international agreements are treaties under international law but are not treaties for purposes of needing ratification by the senate. In my initial post on the subject I just said we need commentary from a lawyer, and RP is a lawyer and I’m not inclined to argue if he says this is so. (I see on the State Department website that the Vienna Convention on Treaties was submitted to the Senate and never ratified, which would seem to indicate that it does require ratification, but I don’t really know anything about this.)
setting aside the constitutional issue Bricker noted, how do you see Durbin asking for the release of a prisoner being a violation of the Logan Act? Are you saying that Obama wants Turkey to keep the guy in jail or whatever?
That letter had a totally different intent and is in no way the same.
Do you believe that just writing a letter is all about the act and not the content or intent?
I’m actually not entirely sure about this.
When the U.S. and Ruritania negotiate a treaty, does the President sign the draft of the treaty before the Senate votes on it? Or does the President have to wait until the Senate has ratified it, and only then signs it?
I had thought it was the former: the President signs it, making his support for it clear, and then waits for the Senate to vote up or down on it.
(This source says that the President ratifies treaties! I’m almost certain that’s wrong!)
(This site says that the President signs the treaty, but that it doesn’t become law until the Senate approves it. This is the way I thought things worked.)
I hesitantly believe that it does not break the law. I firmly believe it should not break the law. It’d be lovely if politics were civilized and rational and respectful–but then it’d be some other species besides us. Tactics like this one, while despicable, ought not be illegal. The precedent of making them illegal would be worse than the precedent of employing the tactic itself.
I’d also love it if I thought REpublicans would pay a price on election day, but that would require American voters to have a memory, and I’m not optimistic about that.
Who knows? That’s why the Logan Act is too vague to be enforceable, a point I may have mentioned once or twice above.
The President signs a treaty, and then it is sent to the Senste for its advice and consent. The vote in the Senate takes place on a resolution of ratification. If it passes by two thirds, the President or his designee takes an instrument of ratification and delivers it to the proper authority (typically the other country if it is a bilateral treaty).
The act of presenting the instrument of ratification is the actual act of ratifying the treaty for the purpose of it becoming binding law. People have taken to calling when the Senate giving its advice and consent to the treaty is ratification, but that isn’t exactly the praise term.
No I don’t, I never advocated for that. I read other people claiming treason (yeah, right), and read other people cite the Logan act. I came to the dope because in the main there are some smart, well reasoned people here. Bricker satisfied my question in his first response.
It strikes me as not only not a violation of the Logan Act, but the Senate reinforcing its power to approve treaties. Nothing wrong with reminding Iran that it takes more than just the President to make an agreement with our country. The President has probably given them the impression that he alone can just do this and it be legally binding.
Which is still not legally binding on the United States if the Senate does not approve ratification. As the Constitution states:
No two thirds of Senate, no treaty. Then it’s only an “executive agreement”, just an agreement between a President and a regime. It does not become part of US law. Any agreement with Iran will be as legally binding as the Kyoto agreement, as in not at all.
You’re making it out like executive agreements are barely worth the paper they are written on. Are you aware that the vast majority of status of forces agreements, which provide legal protection to US service members in foreign countries, are executive agreements? You think those are worthless?
First, those agreements, while not ratified, are also not actively opposed by Congress. It can be assumed that the agreements will be kept by our side as long as they are kept by the other side, even if they have not been legally ratified. On Iran, the President is on his own. As in, he’d be challenged to get two thirds of Democrats to sign off on it, much less two thirds of the whole Senate. There’s nothing wrong with Congress letting Iran know that the President is on his own, and Congress can go ahead and pass new sanctions at will regardless of what understanding the President reaches with Iran.
Second, there’s a wide gulf between “worthless”, and “legally binding”. SOFA agreements that are not ratified may not be legally binding, but they are not worthless either. An agreement where the President goes against the will of Congress is actually pretty close to worthless, and it’s very unusual for a President to pursue such an agreement. I can’t think of any historical examples.