Democrats routinely express outrage over claims of collusion with a foreign power to undermine our democracy. So where is the outrage over revelations that former secretary of state John Kerry held not one but two secret meetings with Iran’s foreign minister to strategize over how to undermine President Trump’s plans to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal?
An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed the meetings after the Boston Globe broke the news, declaring , “We don’t see the U.S. just as Mr. Trump; the United States is not just the current ruling administration.” Think about what this means. Iran is a terrorist state responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans in Iraq, whose leaders hold rallies where thousands chant “Death to America!” Kerry was working with a sworn enemy of the United States to try to undermine the foreign policy of the elected president of the United States.
I thought we didn’t like Americans who colluded with our enemies.
Kerry’s meetings with Iran’s leaders were not isolated incidents, but part of a formal lobbying campaign that included phone calls with European Union leaders and meetings with the presidents of Germany and France in which, the Globe reports, he discussed “the details of sanctions and regional nuclear threats in both French and English.”
On Twitter, Trump suggested that Kerry might have violated the Logan Act, which says: “Any citizen of the United States . . . who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any 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, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.” In fact, no one has been prosecuted under the Logan Act in more than 160 years, and most conservative legal scholars consider it unconstitutional.
Although what Kerry did was probably not illegal, it was deeply hypocritical.
