Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has revealed her overabundance of chutzpah in her phone interview with the AP today.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, deflecting White House criticism of her trip to Syria, said Friday she thinks the mission helped President Bush because it showed the United States is unified against terrorism despite being divided over the Iraq war.
Pelosi, D-Calif., met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus earlier this week, against the president's wishes.
"Our message was President Bush's message," Pelosi said in a phone interview with The Associated Press from Portugal, where she stopped briefly en route back to the United States.
"The funny thing is, I think we may have even had a more powerful impact with our message because of the attention that was called to our trip," the California Democrat said. "It became clear to President Assad that even though we have our differences in the United States, there is no division between the president and the Congress and the Democrats on the message we wanted him to receive."
Meanwhile, a former Reagan official is suggesting that Pelosi could be guilty of a felony by taking this trip. WorldNetDaily reported this today.
The Logan Act, initiated by President John Adams in 1798, makes it a felony and provides for a prison sentence of up to three years for any American, "without authority of the United States," to communicate with a foreign government in an effort to influence that government's behavior on any "disputes or controversies with the United States," points out Robert F. Turner, former acting assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs.
A purely fact-finding trip by a congressional delegation is not a problem, Turner says, nor is formal negotiation with foreign representatives if authorized by the president.
"Ms. Pelosi's trip was not authorized, and Syria is one of the world's leading sponsors of international terrorism," Turner says. "It has almost certainly been involved in numerous attacks that have claimed the lives of American military personnel from Beirut to Baghdad."
Turner concludes: "The U.S. is in the midst of two wars authorized by Congress. For Ms. Pelosi to [flout] the Constitution in these circumstances is not only shortsighted; it may well be a felony, as the Logan Act has been part of our criminal law for more than two centuries. Perhaps it is time to enforce the law."
If Nancy Pelosi were to give Bashar Assad the same message as President Bush's message, she would not have gone. President Bush's message is, "We won't talk to you while you continue to sponsor terror." By going, Pelosi delivered the opposite message.
Pelosi told reporters that during her talks Wednesday with Assad she "determined that the road to Damascus is the road to peace."
"We came in friendship, hope," she said.
The House speaker also said she conveyed an Israeli message to Assad that the Jewish state was ready to resume peace talks. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert quickly issued a denial, however, stating Israel's policy toward Syria has not changed.
As WND reported, members of terrorist organizations whose top leaders live in Syria called Pelosi's Damascus visit "brave" and "very appreciated," saying it could bring about "important changes" to America's foreign policy, including talks with "Middle East resistance groups."
When terrorists start praising Pelosi, you know she's crossed an important line. Perhaps criminal prosecution isn't such a bad idea...
3 comments:
Pelosi was wrong, Democrats aren't anti-terror, they're anti-conservative.
On Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich discussed the Logan Act and suggested the administration didn't have the nerve to enforce the law in this case.
How utterly disappointing. We have become a nation that picks and chooses the laws that we enforce.
What's the statute of limitations on that there law?
Did Newt bring up his trip to China in 1997 when he delivered a message contradicting the Clinton administation regarding the US position on Taiwan? I'd put money down that he didn't.
From the way-back machine at the NYT (you gotta pay to get the original but I hope I'm trusted to some extent):
Speaking with startling bluntness on an issue so delicate that diplomats have tiptoed around it for years, Newt Gingrich said today that he had warned China's top leaders that the United States would intervene militarily if Taiwan was attacked.
As he left for Tokyo after a three-day trip to China, Mr. Gingrich said he had made it absolutely clear how the United States would respond if such a military conflict arose.
Referring to his meetings with China's leaders, Mr. Gingrich said: ''I said firmly, 'We want you to understand, we will defend Taiwan. Period.'"
He also said, ''I think that they are more aware now that we would defend Taiwan if it were militarily attacked.''
Mr. Gingrich, the Speaker of the House, delivered his message, among the most forceful ever given about Taiwan by a visiting United States official, to Wang Daohan, China's chief representative in talks with Taiwan. Mr. Gingrich said he had given the same message to President Jiang Zemin and Prime Minister Li Peng in Beijing last week.
Chinese leaders offered no public response to Mr. Gingrich today. But on Friday, Mr. Jiang urged him to treat the Taiwan issue with care. . . .
Asked about Mr. Gingrich's statements, a Clinton Administration official in Washington said Mr. Gingrich had received briefings about American policy toward China, but that Mr. Gingrich ''was speaking for himself'' in his conversations with Chinese leaders.
The White House issued a statement saying that the policy of the United States was to ''meet its obligation under the Taiwan Relations Act, including the maintenance of an adequate self-defense for Taiwan,'' and that the Administration would maintain its ''one-China policy, the fundamental bedrock of which is that both parties peacefully address the Taiwan issue. . . ."
In an interview on Friday, Mr. Gingrich said he had spoken with Mr. Clinton, and with Mr. Gore on several occasions, to make sure that their messages to Beijing dovetailed. At the time, he did not mention his message on Taiwan.
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