Did Speaker Pelosi break ANY law by visiting Syria?

If you have been paying attention to the news lately, you would have heard the furor over Speaker Pelosi's visit to Syria. Many on the right, like the World Street journal have charged Mrs. Pelosi with committing a crime, while many on the left have defended her and others have frowned on her follies, her pratfall in Damascus or called her Syrian trip ill-conceived or a result of bad behavior.

Clearing ALL the "fog" of rhetoric, the RELEVANT question to be asked is whether Pelosi violated ANY laws by going to Syria? I suggest the answer is a SOLID NO, and I reveal my analysis below:

The law Pelosi has been accused of violating is the Logan Act. The Act, passed in 1799 and renewed in 1994, is codified in 18 U. S. C. section 953 and prohibits unauthorized U.S. citizens from interfering in relations between the United States and foreign governments. Named after George Logan, a Pacifist who went to France in 1798 without President John Adams’ permission to try and settle the Quasi-War, the Act provides:

§ 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply, himself or his agent, to any foreign government or the agents thereof for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.

Thus, it is clear that that if Pelosi went to Syria to act "without authority of the federal government" with the intent to meddle in foreign affairs concerning "disputes or controversies ... or to defeat the measures of the United States", then she violated the law and intruded "[i]nto the field of negotiation the Senate cannot intrude, and Congress itself is powerless to invade it." (Blogger's note: Curtiss-Wright 1936 U. S. Supreme Court case).

In considering this issue, I note that no one has had this law successfully applied to them, though there have been implied threats to do so in the following cases and scenarios: Ross Perot (U.S. POWs recovery trips in Southeast Asia); former Speaker of the House Jim Wright (relationship with the Sandinista government); Reverend Jessie Jackson's (1984 trips to Syria, Cuba and Nicaragua); and Jane Fonda's (many controversial trips to Southeast Asia in protest of the Vietnam War).

In fact, in 1975, Senators John Sparkman and George McGovern were accused of the Act's violations when they visited Cuba and met with government officials. There, the State Department issued a ruling finding that: "The clear intent of this provision [Logan Act] is to prohibit unauthorized persons from intervening in disputes between the United States and foreign governments. Nothing in section 953 [Logan Act], however, would appear to restrict members of the Congress from engaging in discussions with foreign officials in pursuance of their legislative duties under the Constitution. In the case of Senators McGovern and Sparkman the executive branch, although it did not in any way encourage the Senators to go to Cuba , was fully informed of the nature and purpose of their visit, and had validated their passports for travel to that country."

So in applying the Logan Act and the State Department's ruling to the Pelosi facts at hand, it would appear that, unless Pelosi intervened in a dispute between the US and Syria -- I can find No dispute that will trigger this requirement or a Pelosi act intended to defeat the "measures of the United States" -- and went there without the "Executive Branch" being "fully informed of the NATURE and PURPOSE of the [Syrian] visit" and WITHOUT "a validated passport", she is, most assuredly, in the CLEAR.

Any comments?

Update: Speaker Pelosi explains her Syria trip, so does Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WA), who went on on the trip too, on C-Span, and Newt Gingrich weighs in on Fox News.