Logan Act Watch: Korea Trade Agreement Edition

No surprise that that the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement is languishing short of congressional approval in an election year.  But who knew that members of Congress now feel free to team up with foreign legislators jointly to lobby their executive counterparts.  From Foreign Policy’s The Cable:

On Monday, 21 U.S. lawmakers joined with 35 South Korea lawmakers to write to both presidents demanding significant changes in the agreement. “An FTA that prioritizes corporate interests over those of our constituents is not an agreement but a compromise of our countries’ ideals, and it is one we foresee working to defeat,” the lawmakers wrote.

Congressman Mike Michaud (D-ME), chairman of the House Trade Working Group, said in a statement publicizing the letter, “Even beyond the market access issues for textiles, autos and beef, the current free trade agreement is based on the same failed NAFTA model and promises to ship U.S. jobs overseas.”

The letter also calls on the agreement to better address issues of alleviating poverty, advocating social justice, advancing human rights, and protecting the environment.

This would seem better to fit the letter of the Logan Act bar than in its usual deployment against the errant Jim Wright, Jesse Jackson, or Nancy Pelosi breaking bread with the bad guy of the moment.  (The Act proscribes “carr[ying] 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 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,” with three years in the clink as punishment.)  But no paper tiger is going to stop this sort of legislator freelancing, which is clearly on the rise.  Yet another example of the increasing disaggregation of the state.