Ohio Senator Rob Portman was among 47 Republican senators who signed an open letter to the leaders of Iran advising against the nuclear agreement proposed by the Obama Administration. Tom Cotton, junior senator from Arkansas who has held office for little more than two months, composed the letter, which is being called an unprecedented legislative foray into foreign affairs, historically the realm of the president.
The letter advises Iranian leaders that they “may not fully understand our constitutional system” and warns Iran that unless Congress ratifies a treaty, it represents “a mere executive agreement” and that a future president could revoke any agreement between Obama and the Ayatollah “with the stroke of a pen.”
Whether Cotton and the other signers of the letter really intended to educate the Iranian government on the complexities of the U.S. Constitution, or intended, as many suspect, to sabotage the negotiations, the letter has been met with a large amount of derision from various sources.
For his part, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif did not appear to take the letter very seriously. According to a press release from the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Zarif suspected “that the authors not only do not understand international law, but are not fully cognizant of the nuances of their own Constitution when it comes to presidential powers in the conduct of foreign policy.”
Zarif was educated primarily in the United States and perhaps did not need to be informed on how the Constitution works.
Americans have given the letter mixed-to-negative reviews thus far. The hashtag #47Traitors has been trending on Twitter for days, with participants suggesting that the senators’ interference with the president’s foreign policy is tantamount to treason. Seven petitions have appeared on the WhiteHouse.gov website calling on the Obama Administration to charge the senators with a federal crime, including one that has already crossed the 100,000 signature threshold to require an official White House response.
There is almost no chance of Rob Portman, or any of the other letter signers, actually being charged with a crime. Democrats, WhiteHouse.gov petitioners and the #47Traitors tweeters point to the Logan Act, a little-known and rarely enforced 18th century law prohibiting any unauthorized citizen from conducting foreign policy, as evidence that Cotton’s team violated federal law. No one has ever been prosecuted under the Logan Act and it is largely considered one of those vestigial, “no-lawn-mowing-on-Sundays” types of laws.
So Ohio’s junior senator is safe from a treason charge, but as he faces reelection, his main Democratic opponent has jumped on Portman’s signing of the infamous letter. According to The Columbus Dispatch, former Governor Ted Strickland said Portman “owes Ohioans an apology” and called the attempt to sabotage the Iran deal a “reckless political stunt.” The letter’s impact could easily dissipate by the 2016 U.S. Senate elections, but Portman’s critics and opponents will likely try to keep the unprecedented nature of 47 senators fiddling with a nuclear peace deal on the minds of Ohioans until then.