(John Ransom, Headline USA) Actor Sean Penn, ostensibly in Europe to shoot a documentary about the Russian war with Ukraine, inserted himself into delicate NATO negotiations on Wednesday, likely in violation of the Logan Act.
The statute, originally passed in 1799, forbids a private citizen from conducting negotiations with a foreign country on behalf of America.
Although nobody has ever been prosecuted for it, both Democrats and Republicans have threatened its use—most notoriously with national security adviser Michael Flynn’s interactions with Russia during the final weeks of the Obama administration and former Secretary of State John Kerry’s appeals to Iran during the Trump administration.
“An FBI lawyer testified before Congress that the Department of Justice (DOJ) viewed the Logan Act as an ‘untested statute’ that would leave the DOJ vulnerable to ‘substantial litigation risk’ if they charged anyone,” said a press release by Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa., about the Flynn case.
Penn’s case could be different, however. The far-left provocateur’s interference did not involve the same sort of political wrangling between the two parties but threatened to seriously undermine the Biden administration’s policy while enflaming a delicate situation in Poland.
After Ukraine’s northern neighbor, a US ally in NATO, made an unsolicited offer to exchange fighter jets with the US, it was rebuffed by the Biden administration.
But Penn continued to press the matter, inserting himself as an envoy for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a tweet.
I JUST got off a call with President Zelensky’s Chief of staff, Andriy Yermak. Somewhere in the bureaucratic chain between our White House & the Polish Gov., the desperately NEEDED jets are not yet delivered to Ukraine. Public outcry may find the bottleneck. pic.twitter.com/jFfRQTuT1K
— Sean Penn (@SeanPenn) March 9, 2022
“I JUST got off a call with President Zelensky’s Chief of staff, Andriy Yermak,” wrote the two-time Oscar winner.
“Somewhere in the bureaucratic chain between our White House & the Polish Gov., the desperately NEEDED jets are not yet delivered to Ukraine,” he continued. “Public outcry may find the bottleneck.”
In an even more surprising turn, a spokesman for the Polish government actually replied to the Penn communiqué on Twitter with its own tweet.
“Dear Sir, #Poland declares readiness to place the jets at the disposal of the US. Note that the decision to provide Ukraine with this kind of support must not rest with Poland alone, but with the whole #NATO, with the US taking a leading role here,” said Stanisław Żaryn who is spokesperson for a Polish minister.
Those sideline negotiations likely did little for Vice President Kamala Harris, who flew to Warsaw on Wednesday with the task of smoothing over any diplomatic tensions.
This isn’t the first time, however, that Penn has appointed himself his own secretary of state for America by conducting dialogue with foreign governments.
In 2010, the actor made a visit to Venezuela where he campaigned with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. He called for anybody who referred to Chavez as a dictator to be jailed, according to the UK’s left-leaning Guardian.
“Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it. And this is mainstream media,” Penn said about Chavez. “There should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.”
Penn also staged his own rescue operation in New Orleans during 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, but the “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” star needed to be rescued himself after a boat loaded down with his personal entourage immediately began taking on water.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
