AGENDA 21 RADIO

BY CHRISS STREET

California Governor Jerry Brown may be exposing himself to federal criminal prosecution under the Logan Act by negotiating deals with Chinese leaders to counter President Trump’s withdrawal from the U.N. Paris Climate Change Accords.

The California Governor’s Office released a photo and commentary on that Jerry Brown “signed a new sister-state agreement focused on broadening cooperation on low-carbon technologies, environmental protection and clean energy development” with the leaders of China’s Sichuan Province in their capital city of Chengdu.

Brown’s actions are being seen by many Californians as direct criminal interference with the foreign policy of the United States under the 218-year old Logan Act that prohibits:

“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 to 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.”

Congress passed the Logan Act after Pennsylvania State Senator Dr. George Logan, a Republican and a Quaker, sailed in 1798 for France to try to personally negotiate a final peace treaty with France. President John Adams’ and his anti-Jefferson Federalists retaliated to stop individuals from interfering with majority control of the U.S. government.

The California Governor’s Office states that Brown will fly later this week to China’s capitol city of Beijing to be hosted by China’s Ministry of Science and Technology as the keynote speaker at the Under2 Coalition’s ‘Clean Energy Forum.’ His office adds that Brown will officially “participate in the Clean Energy Ministerial, an annual meeting of national energy ministers and other high-level delegates from nearly two dozen countries.

Brown’s blatant efforts for California to conduct a foreign policy independent from the United States government appears much more extreme than the supposedly back-channel contacts between Donald Trump’s staff and the Russians before he took office.

NPR attacked the Trump Administration in February by claiming the President’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, between the November elections and January 20 when Trump took office, may have violated U.S. law under the Logan Act by reassuring the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak regarding Obama Administration sanctions.

The New York Time, Washington Post, Time Magazine, CNN and MSNBC railed against the Trump Administration’s potential criminal actions and demanded that Congress appoint a Special Prosecutor. The chorus led to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI director Robert Mueller a Special Counsel to work with a federal Grand Jury to into Trump’s Russia connections.

From a Logan Act applicability, Governor Brown’s foreign policy efforts are brazenly more confrontational to the foreign policy of the United States government than anything Michael Flynn could have done.

But neither Brown nor Flynn should have much concern over the Logan Act. Although the press regularly dredges up the Logan Act and it has been referenced in several federal court rulings over the last two centuries, no one has ever been prosecuted under the 1799 law.