Happily, the phony case against General Michael Flynn is falling apart. It was bogus from the beginning — a combination of the Russian collusion hoax and the Obama administration’s hatred of a general who told the truth.
Flynn was head of the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) under Obama but was forced out. According to W. Patrick Lang, a former DIA official, “Flynn incurred the wrath of the White House by insisting on telling the truth about Syria. … [T]hey shoved him out. He wouldn’t shut up.”
When General Flynn was named to be part of the incoming Trump administration, the framing began.
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On Wednesday, Fox News wrote:
The handwritten notes — written by the FBI’s former head of counterintelligence Bill Priestap after a meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey and then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Fox News is told — further suggested that agents planned in the alternative to get Flynn “to admit to breaking the Logan Act” when he spoke to then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition period.
Flynn was the national security advisor for the incoming president. He had every right to talk to the Russian advisor. On the other hand, Obama’s former Secretary of State John Kerry had no such rights as a civilian. Each of his many instances of meddling in U.S. foreign policy were violations of the Logan Act, an 18th-century law meant to crack down on unauthorized Americans acting on behalf of the United States during a dispute with foreign governments.
The law prohibits U.S. citizens from having private correspondence with a foreign government “with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government … in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States.”
John Kerry violated the Act many times in recent years, and If the law were ever enforced, he would be spending time in a federal penitentiary.
During interviews to promote a book in September 2018, Kerry told an interviewer that he met with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif three or four times since leaving office and that their talks touched on the international nuclear agreement that Kerry had negotiated.
In May of 2018, the Boston Globe reported that Kerry went to the U.N. for a meeting with Zarif to discuss ways to save the Iran nuke deal. “It was the second time in about two months that the two had met to strategize over salvaging a deal they spent years negotiating during the Obama administration, according to a person briefed on the meetings.”
In short, Kerry was actively trying to sabotage U.S. policy. And this wasn’t the first time.
In January 2018, Israeli Newspaper Ma’ariv reported that Kerry had given a message to Palestinian Authority Pres. Mahmoud Abbas urging the leader to “stay strong in his spirit and play for time, that he should not break and will not yield to President Trump’s demands, because Trump will be out of office within the year.”
It makes you wonder: Did Kerry have inside information on the deep state’s attempt to remove the duly elected president from office? “Out of office within a year” certainly make it sound that way.
In 2018 Sen. Marco Rubio sent a letter to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions asking him to investigate Kerry’s meetings with the Iranians for Logan Act violations. But Sessions “resigned” three weeks later.
In May 2019, Rubio sent a letter to AG William Barr repeating the request. There are no available reports as to whether the senator received a response or whether the AG did indeed begin an investigation.
If there is an investigation, perhaps the DOJ will include the times Kerry violated the Logan Act during other GOP administrations. Consider:
- In 1985, Sen. John Kerry ttraveled to Nicaragua for a friendly get-together with the Sandinista president, Daniel Ortega. The position of the Reagan administration was to support the opposition Contras. Kerry wasn’t much interested in the administration’s position. Upon his return to the United States, Kerry met with President Reagan to convey a message from Ortega. Reagan “wasn’t thrilled,” Kerry later told the New York Times.
- In 2006 Kerry went to Syria to meet with Pres. Bashir al-Assad over the objections of President George W. Bush, who was trying to isolate the Syrian despot at the time.
Some say Senator Tom Cotton’s March 2015 open letter to the Iranian regime was an example of a Logan Act violation. But the message wasn’t a negotiation and didn’t even discuss possible terms of a deal. The Cotton letter signed by 47 Senators simply explained how the U.S. Constitution worked and that any agreement that wasn’t ratified by the Senate could be overturned (which is precisely what happened).
Ironically Kerry objected to the Tom Cotton letter, “During my 29 years here in the Senate, I have never heard of — nor even heard of it being proposed — anything comparable to this,” Kerry said. “If I had, I can guarantee that no matter who was president of what the issue was and no matter who the president was, I would have certainly rejected it.”
While I am not an attorney, it certainly seems as if the president is correct when he asserts that Kerry violated the Logan Act. But even if formal charges are brought up against the former secretary of state, it would be a waste of time. In the 220 years since the Logan Act was signed into law, only two people were ever indicted on charges of violating it.
Cross posted at The Lid
