General Flynn, the Intelligence Community and the Logan Act

Wikipedia - The Logan Act

The act states "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."

General Flynn had met with a Russian official after Trump had been elected and prior to being made the National Security Advisor. When asked about sanctions against Russia, Flynn reportedly said that he thought Russia should wait before imposing sanctions of it's own until Trump was in office. After much media hoopla, Flynn ended up resigning.

The truth is that the Logan Act is never used to prosecute anyone and is probably not constitutional. The problem for the media will come in the future. By having taken the position that they have they will now have to address the Bilderberg Meetings, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Tri-Lateral Commission. These are all meetings where private citizens, including representatives from the New York Times and Bill Clinton prior to his being elected President, attend to negotiate with representatives (elected and non-elected) from foreign countries over laws in secret.

The media has given Trump a bully pulpit to arrest any American for attending those meetings in the future without Presidential approval. The actions of the media in regards to Flynn was a tactical mistake on their part. This same law can now be used against the Rockefellers too. Be careful what you wish for is the moral of the story.

Now lets get to the intelligence community. The phone conversation between Flynn and the Russian representative was tapped by the intelligence community and was released to certain newspapers. Aside from the illegality, something more is at work. Consider that tapped conversations are almost never released and very few would have even had access to the conversation so whoever released it can be tracked down. It is not as if every intelligence agent had access to the tap, these things are closely held unless their is a criminal prosecution and they were legally obtained via court order.

Clearly there is something going on in the intelligence community. Remember when General Petraeus was taken out by the intelligence community. Why hasn't the intelligence community gone after the people who wrecked the economy? The two things are connected. In fact, the intelligence community is responsible for seeing these systematic failures and informing the President. Just some things to think about.