Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) appears to have landed himself in severe legal trouble with his already infamous visit to El Salvador in which he met and spoke with Abrego Garcia, the alleged MS-13 gangster, illegal alien, and wife-beater who was deported back to El Salvador by President Donald Trump.
That is because it appears that he violated the 1799 Logan Act by conducting what is alleged to have been unauthorized diplomacy while on his trip to El Salvador to meet with Garcia, during which he harangued the El Salvadorians and was caught on camera with margaritas and the suspected gangster.
The Logan Act, which is named for former Pennsylvania Senator George Logan, attached criminal penalties to any Americans who correspond with foreign officials “with intent to influence the[ir] measures … in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States.” The law was made necessary when then-Sen. Logan met with a French diplomat, Talleyrand, in defiance of then-President John Adams.
Here, it appears that Logan could have violated that act with his trip to and activities in El Salvador, as WMAL host Vince Coglianese noted in his Friday, April 18 broadcast, noting that the woke senator’s conduct while in the Central American country could have violated the threshold for illegality.
Beginning, Coglianese explained the provisions of the act, noting, “The Logan Act says 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 the 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.”
Continuing, he noted that there is a modern precedent for using the law, as it is what the Democrat used to torpedo General Mike Flynn’s role in the first Trump Administration. Beginning by explaining what Gen. Flynn was doing, Coglianese said, “General Flynn, the incoming National Security Advisor to the President of the United States, was merely having conversations with foreign diplomats, foreign dignitaries, as the incoming national security advisor.”
Building on that, he noted that Gen. Flynn, unlike Sen. Van Hollen, was working with President-elect Trump’s policy agenda in mind rather than in defiance of it, saying, “The American people had spoken, they chose President Trump. President Trump chose the people who worked for him, including General Mike Flynn at the time as his national security advisor. So in other words, Mike Flynn wasn’t violating any law. Flynn was working on behalf of the people who just voted for Trump.”
Then, turning more directly to Sen. Van Hollen, Coglianese argued that the senator was in open violation of the law with what he did in El Salvador, saying, “And yet here you have Chris Van Hollen kind of seems open and shut. He’s violating the law. Absolutely, yes.”
Watch him here: