Following Iran’s attack on Israel, the world watches in fear as the military conflict in the Middle East escalates and the shadow of war looms heavily over our heads. Meanwhile, Donald Trump plays with fire by sending a message that may have violated the Logan Act.
The Logan Act is a federal law that criminalizes negotiation efforts by unauthorized American citizens with foreign authorities engaged in ongoing disputes with the United States. This vital legislation prevents people from aggravating delicate political disputes or inadvertently initiating an international conflict. In short, the Logan Act determines that all negotiations with potentially hostile foreign countries must be made through official channels, lest a complicated situation gets out of control.
Calling the current Middle East situation “complicated” would be an euphemism. The human loss of the Israel-Hamas conflict gets bigger each day, and now Iran’s missile attack could lead to the intensification of the armed conflicts. As an ally of Israel, the U.S. is in a tricky position, and the last thing we need is a former POTUS using his failed social media project to threaten the hostile country directly. Yet, that’s precisely what Trump did.
Did Donald Trump violate the Logan Act?
Trump has a complicated history with Iran. In 2020, Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, put into action an offensive operation to assassinate Iranian leaders in Syria. As if the deal was not shady enough, Trump also lied about his involvement in public, enraging Hassan Rouhani, the then-president of Iran. The controversial decision almost dragged the U.S. into a full-blown war with the Middle East potency, one of the few countries in the world capable of launching a nuclear attack. Because of that, Trump is the last person any of us would like to see involved in the current Iran-Israel conflict.
Unfortunately, defying common sense, Trump has used his official Truth Social account to post the image of a message he had previously tweeted in 2020 during the Iranian crisis he instigated. The tweet warns Rouhani never to threaten the U.S. or else he would face the consequences of his actions. It’s a clear call for battle that weakened the international confidence in the U.S. ability to find peaceful solutions to conflicts. Why, then, is Trump unburying a message in such bad taste?
By posting a screen capture of a previous message, Trump can argue he was not violating the Logan Act. After all, he’s not conducting any negotiation but just reposting a message elsewhere. The Logan Act does not extend to citizens’ free speech, which is why Trump is trying, once again, to evade the consequences of his actions. However, Trump is not a citizen like any other; he’s a former President with a vast mediatic reach. Of course, what Trump says in social media will resonate worldwide, and if Iran decides this is an excuse to consider the U.S. hostile, a single warmongering fool with a keyboard can bring doom to us all.
The future of the Iran-Israel conflict is still uncertain. Hopefully, the U.S. will find a way to stay out of it instead of increasing the scope of the war — no thanks to Trump and his big mouth.
What is the ‘Logan Act’ and has Donald Trump violated it?
Updated Flash Report
0 Comments