WALL STREET JOURNAL
Repeal the Logan Act
by Charles Lipson
May 4, 2020

…The Lo­gan Act is a dev­il­ish temp­ta­tion—to bad cops at the FBI, to bad lawyers at the Jus­tice De­part­ment, and to bad pol­icy mak­ers in the White House. The law is so broad and vague it can be used to in­ves­ti­gate al­most any op­po­nent at al­most any time. If any­body can be threat­ened, en­force-ment is bound to be se­lec­tive and dis­crim­i­na­tory, not uni­form and blind as law en­force­ment should be. These en­demic prob­lems mean the Lo­gan Act would prob­a­bly be found un­con­sti­tu-tional, if it faced such a chal­lenge. It hasn’t, be­cause no one has been con­victed un­der it. So it lurks on the books, a tool for po­lit­i­cal mis­chief. READ MORE SUBSCRIPTION CONTENT