Inappropriate Behavior

While the media is focusing on whether or not President Trump’s tweets are appropriate, they are ignoring some extremely inappropriate behavior by former President Obama.

The Federalist Papers posted an article today about the recent violation of the Logan Act by former President Obama.

The article reports:

President Moon Jae-in renewed his resolve to pursue sanctions and dialogue to tackle North Korea’s nuclear program during a meeting with former US President Barack Obama on Monday, saying now is the “last chance” for the regime to return to the negotiating table.

During the 40-minute talk, Moon shared the results of his recent summit with his incumbent US counterpart Donald Trump, asking for Obama’s advice on ways to advance the relationship.

The article then explains the problem:

This could be construed as a violation of the Logan Act as defined by Cornell Law School:

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.

However, the article includes a quote from The New York Times:

The Logan Act appears to be a so-called dead letter, meaning a law that remains technically on the books but is essentially defunct or toothless.

A study by the Congressional Research Service in 2015 said nobody has ever been prosecuted under the statute and identified only one instance of an indictment under the law: in 1803, the United States attorney in Kentucky obtained from a grand jury an indictment of a Kentucky farmer who had written an article in support of creating a separate nation in the territory west of the fledgling United States that would be an ally to France. But the prosecutor dropped the case. A recent draft scholarly paper posted online by a Federal Appeals Court law clerk identified a second apparent such indictment, involving the reported arrest in 1852 of a man who wrote a letter to the president of Mexico.

What President Obama did in meeting with the South Korean President was tacky, inconsiderate, breaking with tradition, and a further attempt by a now irrelevant politician to regain the spotlight.

Meanwhile the media is focused on Donald Trump’s tweets. Really?