Has this entered the realm of Treason?

Explain how it is treason, first.

From the article, I gather Kerry was trying to preserve peace. He may have bent/broken laws though. Treason? I would leave it to the powers that be, to determine that. Like with the Mueller investigation. I am not an expert on laws governing former diplomats behavior, or communication with other foreign diplomats.

For the record, I think preserving the Iran deal is worthwhile.

Treason—which is the only crime defined by the US Constitution itself (Article III, section 3)—has a very specific definition. Under this definition, there are exactly two ways to be guilty of treason: (1) to gather troops and commit at least one act of force against the United States of America, and (2) to give aid and comfort to the government or military of a nation with which the United States of America is currently and officially at war.

So the answer to your question is “no, this has not entered even remotely into the realm of treason.” And it’s a good thing, too: the other person we know who recently engaged in shadow diplomacy was Mike Pompeo (who is now, but was not then, the Secretary of State). It probably wouldn’t be very good for the country if we had to charge him with treason a mere ten days after he took office.

“Treason” is thrown around far too losely. It’s become yet another codeword for “politician doing something I don’t like”.

Such as winning an election.

Treason? Kerry should be commended. He was discussing ways of preserving a peace treaty.

Let’s compare that to Michael Flynn talking to the Russians about lifting sanctions. That comes much closer to being treasonous. And if Trump sanctioned that meeting, it would cover him as well.

As @SavoirFaire wrote, it’s not treason.

The word “treason” is often incorrectly used by people who mean someone is betraying their nation.

So for example, if Trump were doing various things to make himself rich rather than serve the nation, at the expense of our environment, civil rights, wasting our money stupidly, paying it to his cronies, appointing incompetent & corrupt people to high government offices to undermine the purposes of government departments, lying to the people all the time, many might consider most/all of those things to be betrayals, and they may not get/care-about the distinction between those types of betrayal and the legal definition of treason.

In this case, some people might very rationally perceive these actions by Kerry as an attempt to preserve peace and diplomacy with Iran, a country which we are not at war with and which many outside the military-industrial complex and those swayed by the stories that we ought to attack Iran, would not like to be at war with Iran.

Such people might, I would think, tend to be glad someone is trying to salvage such agreements, and might sooner feel angered and betrayed that Trump was severing the agreements with Iran, and if that leads to war for corrupt reasons, may feel like that’s a kind of betrayal worth preventing and punishing, whether it’s called treason or not.

@seawulf575 Isn’t it treason when you carry out , in stealth, actions against the best interests of our country? Obama first started this exchange few years ago and paid billions of dollars to Iran.

The Iran deal was worked out with the UN Security Council. That’s not exactly stealth. And the treaty actually places a lot of restraints and monitoring of Iran (whereas they had none before). But fuck it, whatever. Truth means nothing in the Trump era.

I’m amused that @seawulf575 who usually has quite a bit to say about anything American, has chosen not to respond to the questions being asked of him in his original post. It suggests an inability to defend his trolling.

Treason is a nasty accusation. If I were @seawulf575 I would be careful flinging it around, especially to John Kerry . Kerry – 3 Purple Hearts – and a whole lot of awards, is more of a patriot, I imagine, than the tin soldier asking this question.

@elbanditoroso I purposely opted to not respond. I really wanted to get others’ opinions. I find the act of a civilian purposely trying to undo the course the current administration is taking pretty shady.

As a private citizen, Kerry has a first amendment right to state his views. Any attempt to interfere with these rights would be unconstitutional.

@LostInParadise I would normally agree with you, but this goes beyond the normal voicing of opinions. It borders on, if not solidly in, the Logan Act. It isn’t just voicing opinions, it is trying to negotiate for our nation, or at least helping those opposing our nation to negotiate with us. The freedom of speech is not 100%. Along the lines of not being able to yell FIRE in a movie theater or telling military secrets to the enemy. These are crimes though at their basest point, they could be viewed as being able to use free speech.

. . . the Logan Act may not pass the test for being Constitutional. Therefore cannot be used on Kerry in talking with iran.

@seawulf575 First of all, violating the Logan Act isn’t treason. So even if Kerry has violated the Logan Act, the answer to your question about treason is still “no.” Second, one of the reasons that the Logan Act is almost never enforced is because many prosecutors suspect that it may be unconstitutional and would prefer to keep it around as something to threaten people with than as something to actually prosecute people under. Third, I’m curious if you think it violated the Logan Act when 47 Republican senators attempted to scuttle the Iran deal in 2015 (since they did basically the same thing as Kerry, just in service of the opposite goal).

My own view is that neither Kerry nor the 47 Republican senators violated the Logan Act. The Logan Act was written in a context of someone attempting to perform official negotiations despite having no authorization to do so. Neither Kerry nor the 47 Republican senators portrayed themselves as official envoys of the United States, nor was their status ever unclear to those they were conversing with. So even if the Logan Act is not unconstitutional, the likelihood that any of them could be convicted if prosecuted is virtually zero. And if that weren't enough, there's the simple fact that Kerry can't be accused of trying to "defeat the measures of the United States" (this being the clause of the Logan Act that Kerry's accusers are currently citing) because the Iran deal is still current US policy.

When was the last time someone was actually charged with violating the Logan Act? Not since before the Civil War, I’m fairly sure.

^^ Right The only Logan Act indictment occurred in 1803. It involved a Kentucky newspaper article that argued for the formation in the western United States of a separate nation allied to France. No prosecution followed.

@Tropical_Willie Sources differ, but it looks like there was actually another indictment in 1853 involving a man who wrote a letter to the President of Mexico urging him to reject a treaty that would force him to renege on preexisting economic commitments. Prosecution stalled when the state could not produce the letter (as the Mexican president, Mariano Arista, refused to hand it over). In any case, it was again prior to the Civil War.

The last person that a prosecutor used the Logan Act to threaten, however, was quite recent (and quite public): former US National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.