Starts with “T”, rhymes with “reason”

For a guy arguing that the Honduran coup-meisters were upholding the rule of law, Senator Jim De Mint of South Carolina sure has a strange way of going about it… like flirting with treason, and flaunting his intentions to violate his own nation’s laws, specifically the 1799 Logan Act (U.S.C.A. § 953):

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.

Simply put, in the on-line “Law Library – American Law and Legal Information Encyclopedia,”

The Logan Act (18 U.S.C.A. § 953 [1948]) is a single federal statute making it a crime for a citizen to confer with foreign governments against the interests of the United States. Specifically, it prohibits citizens from negotiating with other nations on behalf of the United States without authorization.

Although there has never been a prosecution under the act, Senator De Mint should be aware of a 1936 Supreme Court decision (United States v Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation, 299 U.S. 304) which held that “[T]he President alone has the power to speak or listen as a representative of the nation. He makes treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate; but he alone negotiates. Into the field of negotiation the Senate cannot intrude, and Congress itself is powerless to invade it.”

Where the Senate fears to tread, this fool goes rushing in…

So, De Mint, claiming a foreign Supreme Court upheld its constitution by allowing its president to be exiled (in violation of its constitution) is violating his own country’s Supreme Court rulings.  Maybe there will, at least be an indictment… or better yet,  De Mint will flee the jurisdiction of the United States and stay in Honduras.  Sucks for them, but one more crazy gringo shouldn’t change the ecological balance that much.