President-elect Donald Trump might be in violation of U.S. law by involving himself in the spat between the Obama administration and Israel, James Zogby said, president of the Arab-American Institute.
"Donald Trump has acted in a way that I believe violates the Logan Act," Zogby said Monday on "MSNBC Live."
The Logan Act, passed in 1799 but never used, makes it a crime for a private citizen to engage in communications with a foreign government with the intent to act against the position of the United States.
"You can have one president at a time, and you cannot have the president-elect acting as if he were president, calling an Egyptian leader and making threats to withdraw or pull back a resolution," Zobgy told MSNBC's Tamron Hall.
Republicans didn't want to allow Barack Obama to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, and now say he cannot act on foreign policy in the last month of his presidency, Zobgy said.
"That simply is not an appropriate response," he told Hall.
The Logan Act was passed after Dr. George Logan took it upon himself to negotiate with France over the jailing of U.S. sailors during a trade embargo. Some legal scholars consider the language of the act so broad that it might be unconstitutional, but since it has never been enforced it has never been tested.
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