[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 9041-9042]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             THE LOGAN ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I have high regard for everybody 
in this whole body, but when someone does something wrong, it is 
imperative that it be brought to light, and brought to light in a 
public forum.
  About a week ago, the Speaker of the House, along with others, took a 
trip that the State Department and the White House disapproved of, to 
visit Syria. Syria is a terrorist state, has been on the terrorist 
state list for a long, long time. They have been working with Iran, 
they have been a transit point for weapons that went into Lebanon, 
weapons that killed a lot of people. They support Hezbollah and Hamas, 
two terrorist organizations. They work closely with Iran which has been 
involved in terrorism and is also on the terrorist list. And for the 
Speaker and others to go over there and talk with Assad, in my opinion 
and in the opinion of the law, the Logan Act, that it was not only the 
wrong

[[Page 9042]]

thing to do and sent the wrong message, but it was a violation of an 
act of Congress.
  I want to read to you the language in the Logan Act. It says, ``Any 
citizen of the United States, wherever he or she 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, in relation to any disputes 
or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of 
United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more 
than 3 years or both.''
  Now, I am not under any illusions that there is going to be any 
censorship of the Speaker or any prosecution of the Speaker, but I 
think the American people ought to know that she weakened the position 
of the United States in the Middle East, and she broke the law; and she 
should be held accountable for that. And tonight I hope the American 
people get this message and send a message to the Speaker.
  She has talked recently, as I understand it, and she is thinking 
about going to Iran and talking to Ahmadinejad. He is one of the 
terrorist leaders of the world. And if she were to go over there while 
he is building nuclear weapons and the whole world is trying to get him 
to stop, it would be a sure sign of weakness on the part of the United 
States, and it would send such a signal that they would be more 
aggressive than they have been in the past.
  In 1938 and 1939, Winston Churchill was looked upon as a warmonger 
because he warned about Hitler, and yet Lord Chamberlain went to 
Munich, Germany, and he signed a peace agreement on Hitler's terms, 
gave Hitler the Sudetenland, came back, and said, ``Peace in our 
time,'' because he went and talked with Hitler and he thought he could 
convince him not to be aggressive. That was the green light for World 
War II and 62 million people died.
  Talking to these terrorists without getting them to discuss and want 
to change and move away from their policies of mass destruction is 
wrong. Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons and they will already 
have one; they are trying to build a delivery system for 
intercontinental, intermediate range, and short-range missiles.
  We must not send a signal of weakness. I think the Speaker did the 
wrong thing. I believe she violated the Logan Act because she didn't 
have the approval of both the White House and the Defense Department, 
and I hope that she won't do this again. And I certainly hope she won't 
go to Iran.

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