On Flynn, the Logan Act dog won't hunt

By Frank Friday  December 5, 2017

Apparently, the upshot on Mr. Mueller and the Flynn plea bargain is that there is not a shred of evidence that anybody remotely connected to Team Trump sought out illegal Russian help in the 2016 elections. No, it's all about a Logan Act violation after the election, when Mike Flynn asked the Russians to veto a U.N. resolution condemning Israel!  That's kind of an interesting hill for the Trump-haters to want to die on – especially all those Republican NeverTrump Israel hawks (Kristol, Boot, Rubin, etc.). Now, the Logan Act is dead-letter law, just like its repealed cousins, the Alien and Sedition Acts. It could never be successfully used today under 1st Amendment case law.

No one has ever even been brought to trial under it. But gotta get Trump, and any old thing will do, I guess. I even see where two law professors have just a written a rather lame and unconvincing defense of the Logan Act's viability in the New York Times. (One of them, Eric Posner, just had his lunch eaten by the Supreme Court on the travel ban, for what it's worth.)   Now, call me an old-fashioned originalist if you must, but I happened to also do an odd thing for a modern lawyer: I actually went back and read the statute. Even for all its sweeping and general language, the actions of Gen. Flynn and his superiors are not in violation of the Logan Act...........Read more