Michael Flynn's tenure was the shortest as a national security advisor of all time, with his resignation coming after just about twenty four days. Flynn resigned and made reports that during the presidential campaign he had discussed u S sanctions against Russia during conversations with Russian officials. The White House is confirmed as well that General Flynn misled Vice President
Michael Pence about the conversations. And now there are reports that the FBI is investigating contacts between other members of the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence in the year before the election. These developments have raised concerns about possible disarray and the administration's national security apparatus, and also questions about whether anyone in the Trump campaign broke the law in
their contacts with the Russian government. Here to talk to us about all of this are Stephen Vladick, a professor at the University of Texas Law School, and William Banks, founding director of the Institute for National Security and counter Terrorism. Thank you both for being here. Steve, Let's start with the law itself, the law that um people may have violate. To hear that there were some questions to whether General Flynn and violated. It is that called the Logan Act.
Tell us about what the Logan Act is. The Logan Act, I think is the favorite, uh, dusty old chestnut that folks like to drag out anytime someone we don't like does something in the foreign policy that we disagree with. UM.
This is a see statute, not a typo. UM. The Congress passed basically in response to an incident where a guy named Dr George Logan, who was a prominent Democratic Republican basically a Jeffersonian in Philadelphia, UM, took America's foreign policy with France into his own hands, tried to negotiate with the French government, even though President Adams and Congress at the time we're very much more pro British UM.
And the statute purports to prohibit anyone, acting without the authority of the United States UM, from engaging in correspondence or communications with foreign governments that has the effect of influencing our foreign policy. It's never been successfully used. The last indictment was in early nineteenth century. There are serious constitutional objections to it, including that it's a content based
restriction on speech, and that it's vague. UM. And you know, I don't think that Jeff Sessions is going to be in a big hurry to prosecute Mike Flynn. So it's a fun academic exercise, but I think it's actually probably not at the end of the day, what the real headline is about Michael Flynn. William. Would it be possible even to invoke it after it's been ignored for more than two hundred years, and what are the optics of
doing that? I agree with with Steve that it's highly unlikely that it's going to be invoked in this case. It's a it's a political tool used by an administration to control voices outside the government that they don't want to have participating in a in a national security or
foreign affairs matter, and that's certainly not the case with Flynn. Well, Steve it it may be impossible to enforce, but it's a I mean, it is a real concern when you have, you know, usual traditionally we've had kind of one president at a time, as they say, and you want you don't want private citizens conducting foreign policy, particularly when the president is trying to do certain things and a new president has been sworn in yet, so where is kind
of it may not be legally in something we can enforce. But it has kind of drawn a line for people, hasn't it about how they should behave? Yes? And no, I mean I think the Logan APT, I mean, let's be clear, the Logan APT itself wasn't directed at the problem of presidential transitions. Um, right, I mean George Logan
was just a private citizen when Congress past that statute. Um. The problem of presidential transitions is one Congress has actually finally started to grapple within a series of statutes in the last fifteen years. And I can totally imagine a you know, narrower and much more focused, maybe non criminal restriction on what kinds of contacts a transition team is
allowed to have with foreign governments. But I guess the problem is that, you know, compared to that specific problem and to the one president at a time, um, you know phenomenon, the Logan Act is a is a broadsword,
not a scalpel. And so you know, I think it's the issue here is not so much whether we ever want individual members of transition teams, you know, set it on the stage for the foreign policy that their president is soon going to be conducting, but rather you know, is this really the way to do it or should Congress go back to the drawing board? Um. And with regard to Flynn, I think the issue is, you know, separate from the Logan Act, is in other kinds of
of legal hot water William. That brings up the FBI question Flynn in the early days of the Trump presidency about his conversations, and investigators believe Flynn was not entirely forthcoming to put it. According to The New York Times, if the authorities conclude that Flynn knowingly lied to the FBI, could that expose him to a felony charge from making false statements? It could. And in contrast to the Logan Act, it's uh, it's it's written in such a way that
that it pretty directly applies to what Flynn did. It just says that anyone who is within the jurisdiction of the government the United States knowingly and willfully makes materially false, fictitious of fraudulent statement is is engaged in felonious behavior.
So I think there's a fair chance. So it's the old adage that the cover up is worse than the crime, right, So I agree with with Steve about the Logan Act, and and it's it's not going to happen in this case that he will be sanctioned for what he actually might have talked to the Russian ambassador about, but he may well be sanctioned for a line about it to
the Bureau. As the Trump administration considers possible replacements for former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, and the FBI is reportedly investigating contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian intelligence during last year's campaign. Russia has deployed a land based cruise missile that American officials say violates the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces or i n F Treaty. So things with Russia and on the federal levels seem to be getting
very mixed up. We have been talking with Stephen Vladika, professor at the University of Texas School of Law, and William Banks of the Institute for National Security and counter Terrorism about the resignation of an ESSA director Flynn and the investigations going on, and we're going to talk about this and the and the treat possible treaty valation. Um. William, Let's start though, by continuing to talk about the the situation involving the possible Logan Act violations or communications with
the Russian government. You know, we were talking about the fact that there's not really a lot of prosecutorial possibility here and the and the law is kind of vague. Are there other things that we could expect from a legal standpoint, perhaps in Congress that might happen as a result of UM people being concerned about improper contacts between
Trump campaign officials and the Russians. Well, as many of your listeners know, the Congress is ality determined to begin investigation of the of the Russian involvement in the sixteen presidential election on the basis of the intelligence communities reports that were released before that the Trump administration took office.
And I think that those they're simply additional impetus to get those investigations going now and to broaden their scope to include a potential involvement of Trump campaign officials during the pendency of the election. Steve Senator Mark Warner of the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation said that they're they're going to go forward. When he was he said it would be appropriate for Flynn to testify, but he wouldn't say whether or not they had decided to subpoena him. Would
his testimony be part of any intensive investigation. I mean, I would think it would have to be. But you know, it's it's telling that that quote comes from Senator Warner, who you know, is in the minority right now on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Seems like the real question is whether it's the Republican leadership um Speaker Ryan, Senator McConnell, and the chairs of the relevant committees who are actually going to show any interest in having any kind of investigation,
any kinds of hearings. You know, Congressman Nunez, who's the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said yesterday that he thought the far bigger issue coming out of this news regarding General flann Um was the leaking um and the possibility that someone had disclosed the contents of you know, secret surveillance in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. So long as Congress thanks that's the story here, I'm not especially optimistic that Senator Warner is going to have
his chaps. Well. Another story we have, William is the fact that there's American officials are now saying that Russia has violated a treaty, which is of course you know, legal obligation between countries that goes back to the Reagan administration. Um, by deploying this land based missile system, can you give us some backstory what this treaty is and what the
violation might be. Well, the treaty is is a thirty year old treaty, has to do with land based weaponry, and and indeed there's I think a pretty good case to be made that that the deployment of this particular unit by the Russians would be a treaty violation. It's you know, it requires some interpretation. Uh. The questions will be uh carefully visited inside our government as well as
in NATO. The larger context here, I think, though, is what what plays the Russians are making now because of the transition, the youth of the Trump administration, the inexperience of many who are now in key positions in the administration, so being aggressive in Ukraine rolling out this weapon system. Uh. They had a near miss with a US ship in
the in the region, I believe it was yesterday. Uh. Seems like they're testing US in a in a number of ways, including this UH involvement in the in the election before the fact Steve considering that it's difficult to figure out where Trump's position on Russia is any one day. He had some tweets today that seemed to say something
different than he said before. Is there any Do you think there's any likelihood that they would actually do something if they found that Russia had violated the Arms Control treaty? I wouldn't hold my breast. I mean, I think that I think there's a there's a real question here about what the diplomatic priorities of the federal government are visa the Russia. You know, Secretary Tillerson made a number of statements during his confirmation hearing um that he was not
potentially as sympathetic as as some other administration. Um. But I just have a hard time thinking that if we were going to draw some kind of diplomatic redline with Russia, that this would be it. Um. And I think that's the real problem, because then the question becomes, what does
Russia do next? UM. I think there's no question, as Bill rightly says, you know that Russia's gonna sort of poke and prod and try to figure out how it can take maximum advantage m of the inexperience and frankly the incompetence of the new administration, and then the question just becomes if it's not going to be the White
House that pushes back who's left? And I think that's why the attention once again has to come back to Congress UM and to whether, for example, there should be legislation to prevent the president from you know, laterally lifting the sanctions against Russia UM and other legislative measures, you know, until the less Congress really starts assertive its own institutional role here, we're going to see more of this, not
less of it. Well, it certainly seems as though these stories are not going to be going away anytime soon. Our thanks to Professor Stephen Vladdock of the University of Texas School of Law, and to WILLIAMS. William Banks, the founding director of the Institute for National Security Encounter Terrorism, for joining us here today on Bloomberg Law. Coming up on Bloomberg Law, the Justice Department has sued Direct TV and A T and T over colluding with competitors about
the Los Angeles Dodgers television channel. Apparently they don't want to pay the prices the time Warner Cable has been trying to get them to pay and a lot of people in LA have not been able to watch the Dodgers for some time, so action by the Justice Department coming up here on Bloomberg Law with Michael Best and June Grassoe. This is Bloomberg